MySQL started in 1995 as a project by Swedish developers Michael Widenius, David Axmark, and Finnish developer Allan Larsson, aiming for a fast, simple alternative to the heavier commercial databases of the era.
Rapid Adoption
MySQL’s speed and free licensing made it the default database for the web’s explosive growth in the late 90s and 2000s — it became the “M” in the LAMP stack alongside Linux, Apache, and PHP, powering everything from early WordPress to Facebook’s original architecture.
The Sun and Oracle Era
Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB in 2008 for roughly $1 billion. When Oracle acquired Sun in 2010, community concern over Oracle’s stewardship of a database that competed with Oracle’s own commercial product led directly to the MariaDB fork, led by original MySQL co-founder Michael Widenius.
MySQL Today
Despite the fork and decades of competition from PostgreSQL and newer databases, MySQL remains one of the most widely deployed databases in the world — still under active Oracle development, with MySQL 8.0’s window functions, JSON support, and CTEs closing much of the historical feature gap with PostgreSQL.