Tutorial
What is MySQL?
MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. As with other relational databases, MySQL stores data in tables made up of rows and columns. Users can define, manipulate, control, and query data using Structured Query Language, more commonly known as SQL. MySQL’s name is a combination of “My,” the name of MySQL creator Michael Widenius’s daughter, and “SQL”.
A flexible and powerful program, MySQL is the most popular open-source database system in the world. As part of the widely-used LAMP technology stack (which consists of a Linux-based operating system, the Apache web server, a MySQL database, and PHP for processing), it’s used to store and retrieve data in a wide variety of popular applications, websites, and services.
For more educational resources related to MySQL, please visit:
A complete list of our educational resources on MySQL can be found on our MySQL tag page.
Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.
About the author(s)
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
Become a contributor for community
Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.
DigitalOcean Documentation
Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product.
Resources for startups and SMBs
The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product.
The developer cloud
Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.
Get started for free
Sign up and get $200 in credit for your first 60 days with DigitalOcean.*
*This promotional offer applies to new accounts only.