MySQL is the world's most popular open source database software, with over 100 million copies of its software downloaded or distributed throughout its history. With its superior speed, reliability, and ease of use, MySQL has become the preferred choice for Web, Web 2.0, SaaS, ISV, Telecom companies and forward-thinking corporate IT Managers because it eliminates the major problems associated with downtime, maintenance and administration for modern, online applications.
Many of the world's largest and fastest-growing organizations use MySQL to save time and money powering their high-volume Web sites, critical business systems, and packaged software - including industry leaders such as Yahoo!, Alcatel-Lucent, Google, Nokia, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Booking.com.
MySQL is a key part of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP / Perl / Python), the fast-growing open source enterprise software stack. More and more companies are using LAMP as an alternative to expensive proprietary software stacks because of its lower cost and freedom from platform lock-in.
MySQL code uses C and C++. The SQL parser uses yacc and a home-brewed lexer, sql_lex.cc MySQL works on many different system platforms, including AIX, BSDi, FreeBSD, HP-UX, i5/OS, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD, Novell NetWare, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, eComStation, OS/2 Warp, QNX, IRIX, Solaris, Symbian, SunOS, SCO OpenServer, SCO UnixWare, Sanos, Tru64 and Microsoft Windows. A port of MySQL to OpenVMS also exists.[10]
All major programming languages with language-specific APIs include Libraries for accessing MySQL databases. In addition, an ODBC interface called MyODBC allows additional programming languages that support the ODBC interface to communicate with a MySQL database, such as ASP or ColdFusion. The MySQL server and official libraries are mostly implemented in ANSI C/ANSI C++.
To administer MySQL databases one can use the included command-line tool (commands: mysql and mysqladmin). Potential users may also download from the MySQL site: GUI administration tools: MySQL Administrator, MySQL Migration Toolkit and MySQL Query Browser. The GUI tools are now included in one package called MySQL GUI Tools.
In addition to the above-mentioned tools developed by MySQL AB, several other commercial and non-commercial tools integrate with MySQL. Examples include Navicat Free Lite Edition, AnySQL Maestro Freeware Edition or SQLyog Community Edition, they are free desktop based GUI tools, and phpMyAdmin, a free Web-based administration interface implemented in PHP.