MySQL

MySQL is one of the world's most popular relational databases and the foundation of most web applications, including content management systems like WordPress. It stores data in related tables and exposes it through the standard SQL query language, letting you precisely create, read, update and delete information.

How MySQL works

MySQL organises data using the relational model: information goes into tables made of columns (fields) and rows (records), and relationships between tables are built with keys. The key concepts:

• Tables and keys — a primary key uniquely identifies a record, while a foreign key links related tables.
• SQL queries — SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements operating on data declaratively.
• Storage engines — InnoDB (transactions, foreign keys, integrity) and the older MyISAM (fast reads without transactions).
• Indexes — structures that speed up searches at the cost of extra space and write overhead.

MySQL in practice

MySQL powers a huge share of the internet:

1. Websites and CMS platforms — content, users and site configuration stored in the database.
2. Online stores — product catalogues, orders and customer data in a coherent relational structure.
3. Web applications — the persistence layer for frameworks such as Laravel.

The database is most often managed through the browser with phpMyAdmin. MySQL's performance depends heavily on server resources — fast NVMe disks and enough RAM for the database buffer translate directly into query response times, which is critical to the speed of the whole application. In production, replication is often used to spread read load across additional servers and to keep a hot standby copy of the data.