Note - MySQL is an active product with a vibrant production team; fresh versions are issued frequently, but they are very thoroughly tested and you don't need to upgrade every single time.

The text below was originally written three years ago, and it's amazing how things have move forward - indeed, writing about MySQL versions seems more like writing a daily newspaper than anything else. I have amended / updated the text.


MySQL is an open source relational database engine, tested and running on numerous platforms; ready compiled copies (binaries) of the current production versions are download-able for a wide range of operating systems such as
 Linux
 Windows
 Solaris
 Free BSD
 MacOS X
 HP-UX
 AIX
 SCO
 SGI Irix
 Dec OSF
 BSDi
from:
 http://www.mysql.com
and you can also download and compile your own sources if you wish.

For production, the version you are looking for on the MySQL site is marked STABLE.


There will usually be a test and development release of MySQL available which has a higher number that the current stable production release.

The differences between the stable and development versions might at times be minimal, but at other times the development release may be used as a testing ground for major new features. If you have a requirement to use these new features in your production environment, test them out by all means but remember that the development release may well NOT be as reliable as the production version, and you are taking a risk.


There are a number of features in MySQL which are important for some users, but worse than unnecessary for others - they make for reduced performance, and larger executable files.

In order to meet the requirements of both groups of users, two different binary versions of MySQL are available for download - MySQL and MySQL - Max. A single set of source code covers both versions, as the extras are selected through compile time options.

The extra features in the "max" version include
 Berkeley_DB i(BDB) tables
 InnoDB tables
both of which provide transaction-safe tables (i.e. tables to which locks can be applied while a series of SQL queries is made, the total of that series of queries being referred to as a transaction)


See also MySQL courses

Please note that articles in this section of our web site were current and correct to the best of our ability when published, but by the nature of our business may go out of date quite quickly. The quoting of a price, contract term or any other information in this area of our website is NOT an offer to supply now on those terms - please check back via our main web site

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At Well House Consultants, we provide training courses on subjects such as Ruby, Perl, Python, Linux, C, C++, Tcl/Tk, Tomcat, PHP and MySQL. We're asked (and answer) many questions, and answers to those which are of general interest are published in this area of our site.