MySQL — Database Management System

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. Currently, this DBMS is one of the most popular in web applications. The vast majority of CMSs use MySQL (often exclusively, without alternatives), and almost all web frameworks support MySQL at the basic configuration level (without additional modules).

The advantages of the MySQL DBMS include ease of use, flexibility, low cost of ownership (compared to paid DBMSs), as well as scalability and performance.

Performance

MySQL allows you to store signed and unsigned integer values with lengths of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 bytes, works with fixed and variable length string and text data, allows you to execute SQL commands SELECT, DELETE, INSERT, REPLACE, and UPDATE SQL commands, provides full support for operators and functions in the SELECT and WHERE parts of queries, works with GROUP BY and ORDER BY, supports the group functions COUNT(), AVG(), STD(), SUM(), MAX(), and MIN() group functions, allows the use of JOIN in queries, including LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN, supports replication, transactions, work with foreign keys and cascading changes based on them, and provides many other functionalities.

The flexibility of the MySQL DBMS is ensured by support for a large number of table types. Users can choose between MyISAM tables, which support full-text search, and InnoDB tables, which support transactions at the level of individual records. There are also other table types developed by the community.

Details

The MySQL DBMS appeared in 1995. It is written in C and C++, tested on a variety of compilers, and runs on various platforms. Since 2010, MySQL has been developed and supported by Oracle Corporation. The product is distributed under both the GNU GPL and its own commercial license. However, under the terms of the GPL, if any program includes MySQL source code, that program must also be distributed under the GPL license. For those who do not want to open the source code of their programs, there is a commercial license, which, in addition to the possibility of development under a “closed” license, provides high-quality service support. The MySQL developer community has created various forks — Drizzle, OurDelta, Percona Server, and MariaDB — all of which already existed when Oracle acquired the rights to MySQL.

Currently, MySQL and its fork MariaDB occupy the top spot, followed by PostgreSQL and SQLite. Other DBMSs are used much less frequently in web projects.

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