MySQL (Relational database)
Updated: July 9, 2026
At a glance
| Maintainer | Oracle Corporation |
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| First release | 1995 |
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| Language | SQL |
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| License | GPLv2 (dual licensing) |
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Learning curve
Gentle, the classic starter relational database, with decades of tutorials and every framework supporting it first.
Performance
Excellent for read-heavy OLTP; InnoDB is solid and its replication is battle-tested at planet scale (YouTube via Vitess).
Ecosystem
Enormous legacy footprint and hosting availability, plus the MariaDB fork as a drop-in alternative.
Ideal for
- Web apps and CMS platforms (WordPress runs on it)
- Read-heavy workloads with straightforward schemas
- Teams on classic LAMP stacks
- Projects on budget shared hosting
Pros
- Proven at extreme scale by the largest sites on the internet
- Fast reads and mature, well-understood replication
- Ubiquitous support, every host, framework and ORM knows MySQL
- Easy day-to-day operations for common workloads
Cons
- Fewer advanced features than PostgreSQL (weaker JSON, no comparable extensions)
- Oracle stewardship worries part of the community
- Historic gaps in SQL standards compliance and strictness
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