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MySQL

by Oracle · Database · also known as MySQL Community Server, MySQL Enterprise Edition

Oracle's widely deployed open-source relational database server, offered as a GPL community edition and commercial enterprise and cloud editions

GPL-2.0-only WITH Universal-FOSS-exception-1.0 licenseOpen sourceFreeEnterpriseUsage-basedSelf-hostedCloudSelf-hostable
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Link verified Nov 2, 2026

Overview

MySQL is a relational database server developed by Oracle. The Community Server is released under the GNU GPL version 2 with Oracle's FOSS License Exception, while Enterprise Edition, Cluster CGE and the HeatWave cloud service are commercial. It remains one of the most common back ends for web applications and content management systems, and it is available as a managed service from every major cloud.

The InnoDB storage engine provides ACID transactions, row-level locking and crash recovery; the server adds replication (asynchronous and group replication), JSON columns, window functions and common table expressions. Oracle maintains long-term-support lines (8.0 and 8.4, and 9.7) alongside innovation releases that switched to calendar versioning in 2026, with 26.10 the current release documented on dev.mysql.com.

Compared with PostgreSQL, MySQL has a smaller extension ecosystem and a stricter separation between community and commercial features; MariaDB continues as a community fork with diverging features.

Editorial note on uncertainty. www.mysql.com and dev.mysql.com return HTTP 403 to non-browser clients; both pages were loaded today through a browser-like fetcher. The GPL exception identifier follows the LICENSE file wording; verify before relying on it for compliance.

Capabilities

  • InnoDB transactional storage with row-level locking
  • Asynchronous and group replication
  • JSON data type with functions and indexing
  • Window functions and common table expressions
  • MySQL Shell and Router tooling
  • Managed deployments through HeatWave and cloud providers

Typical workflows

  1. Back end for PHP, Node or Java web applications
  2. Read replicas for reporting workloads
  3. Migration source or target for cloud databases

Strengths

  • Very wide hosting and tooling support
  • Long-term-support release lines
  • Familiar to most web developers

Limitations

  • Commercial features reserved to Enterprise Edition
  • Smaller extension ecosystem than PostgreSQL
  • Innovation releases change versioning and support cadence

Prerequisites

  • A server, container or managed MySQL service

Who it is for

  • Web developers
  • Database administrators

Alternatives & comparison

  • MongoDB

    Document database storing BSON documents with a rich aggregation pipeline, available as a source-available Community Server or the managed Atlas service

    Source-availableFree
  • PostgreSQL

    Open-source object-relational database server with a large extension ecosystem (PostGIS, pgvector, TimescaleDB) and broad SQL coverage

    Open sourceOpen source
  • SQLite

    Public-domain embedded SQL database engine that stores a whole database in one file and ships inside most operating systems and browsers

    Open sourceOpen source
Compare MySQL with its alternatives →

Sources & verification

Primary sources consulted for this record. Claims are tied to the fields each source supports; the automated link checker re-verifies every URL on a schedule.

  • License
    MySQL Server LICENSE (GPLv2 with Universal FOSS Exception)

    https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/blob/trunk/LICENSE

    Supports: license_spdx, source_model

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official documentation
    MySQL Documentation

    https://dev.mysql.com/doc

    Supports: capabilities, product_status

    Lists reference manuals for 8.0, 8.4, 9.7, 26.7 and 26.10

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official site
    MySQL

    https://www.mysql.com/

    Supports: name, summary, pricing_model

    Site blocks plain curl (HTTP 403) but loaded through a browser-like fetcher today

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Repository
    mysql/mysql-server

    https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server

    Supports: repo_url

    checked Nov 1, 2026
Confidence
Medium
Reviewed
Nov 1, 2026
Links
Broken · Nov 2, 2026

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