What is MySQL?
MySQL is a relational database management system originally released in 1995 by MySQL AB in Sweden. Oracle Corporation has owned and developed MySQL since acquiring Sun Microsystems in 2010. It is dual-licensed: the GPL-licensed Community Edition can be self-hosted at no cost, while Oracle also sells commercial Enterprise Edition licenses and a managed cloud offering, MySQL HeatWave. InnoDB is the default storage engine and provides ACID-compliant transactions.
Read the full overview
Sources checked 27 September 2026: What is MySQL and MySQL products overview.
Key capabilities
- Community Edition: GPL-licensed, free to self-host.
- Enterprise Edition: Oracle-supported commercial license with additional tooling.
- InnoDB storage engine: ACID transactions and row-level locking by default.
- MySQL HeatWave: Oracle's managed cloud database and analytics service.
Decide between self-hosting the Community Edition and a managed offering, and confirm which storage engine and replication topology the workload requires. Licensing terms differ meaningfully between the free GPL edition and Oracle's commercial licenses, so check which applies before embedding MySQL in a distributed product.
MySQL fits teams that want a widely supported, self-hostable relational database with a large ecosystem of tools, hosting providers, and community knowledge. Because Oracle now owns MySQL, some organizations concerned about vendor direction evaluate the MariaDB fork alongside it; the two have diverged in some features since Oracle's 2010 acquisition.
MySQL remains one of the most widely deployed open-source relational databases, with broad hosting and tooling support built up over three decades. The official MySQL reference manual, checked 27 September 2026, is the authoritative source for current version behavior rather than general popularity claims.
Technical details
- Access
- Self-hosted
- Source model
- Open source
- Founded
- 1995
- Headquarters
- Austin, Texas, USA
- Pricing model
- Open source
- API
- Available
- Website
- www.mysql.com ↗
Official resources
What to verify for your environment
Start from the users, systems and operating responsibilities the tool needs to support.
- Confirm current features, licensing and support terms with the publisher.
- Validate deployment, data location, access control, backup and recovery requirements.
- Test integrations, export paths and a representative operational workflow before committing.
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