What is MySQL?
The world’s most ubiquitous and flexible open source relational database
What is MySQL?
MySQL is the most widely adopted open source relational database and serves as the primary relational data store for many popular websites, applications, and commercial products. With more than 20 years of community-backed development and support, MySQL is a reliable, stable, and secure SQL-based database management system. The MySQL database is suitable for a wide variety of use cases, including mission critical apps, dynamic websites, and as an embedded database for software, hardware, and appliances.
AWS supports MySQL in a variety of ways, including a fully managed database service, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for MySQL. Amazon Aurora with MySQL compatibility is also built using MySQL, and Amazon RDS supports the popular MySQL fork project, MariaDB. You can also host MySQL on Amazon EC2 and self-manage the database, or browse the 3rd party MySQL offerings on AWS Marketplace.
Learn about Amazon RDS for MySQL
History of MySQL
The first version of MySQL Server was released in 1995 by the Swedish company MySQL AB, founded by David Axmark, Allan Larsson, and Michael Widenius. MySQL takes its name from Widenius’ daughter, named My. The MySQL project was released as open source in 2000, under the GNU General Public License (GPL). By 2001, MySQL had reached more than 2 million active installations; by 2004, the software was being downloaded more than 30,000 times a day. MySQL was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 and, when Oracle acquired Sun in 2009, it also took ownership of MySQL. Today, MySQL is the most widely used open source relational database system.
Benefits of using MySQL
Popular use cases for MySQL
MySQL fork projects
MariaDB
MariaDB is a popular fork of MySQL from MariaDB, which was founded by the original developers of MySQL who intended it to remain free and open source under the GNU GPL. While MariaDB is maintained separately from MySQL, it retains a high degree of MySQL compatibility, including library binary equivalency, and exact matching with APIs. AWS supports MariaDB with the fully managed database service, Amazon RDS for MariaDB.
Percona Server
Percona Server is another popular fork of MySQL from Percona. Percona Server includes XtraDB, Percona's fork of the InnoDB Storage Engine.
Language support
MySQL supports most leading programming languages and protocols, including:
Python
Java
Perl
Node.js
.Net
PHP
Ruby
Erlang
C/C++
Tcl
ODBC
Objective-C
MySQL vs. PostgreSQL
MySQL and PostgreSQL are both popular open source relational databases. Traditionally, MySQL has been perceived as easy to use and fast, whereas PostgreSQL has been perceived as feature-rich and more comparable to commercial databases like Oracle. However, the current major versions of MySQL and PostgreSQL both offer many robust features and capabilities in the way of performance, reliability, security, and more. You can learn more about PostgreSQL and try Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL using the AWS Free Tier.
MySQL Hosting Options on AWS
Self-managed MySQL on Amazon EC2
Historically, relational databases have been on-premises, and as database workloads moved to the cloud, organizations initially leveraged Amazon EC2 to run their own databases. With this approach, you have to manage all of the usual administration tasks that accompany an on-premises database such as hardware provisioning, database setup, tuning, patching, backups, and scaling.
Fully Managed MySQL on Amazon RDS
Amazon offers a fully managed relational database service, Amazon RDS for MySQL, available for trial at no cost with the AWS Free Tier. Amazon RDS makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale MySQL deployments in the cloud. With Amazon RDS, you can deploy internet-scale MySQL deployments in minutes, with cost-efficient and resizable hardware capacity.
Getting started with Amazon RDS for MySQL is simple
1
Sign up for Amazon RDS
Get access to the Amazon RDS Free Tier.
2
Learn with simple tutorials
Discover how to create and connect to a MySQL database using RDS.
3
Start building with Amazon RDS
Begin building with help from the MySQL on Amazon RDS user guide.