---
title: "What is the difference between MySQL and SQL?"  
description: "What is the difference between MySQL and SQL?"  
author: "Revati S Misra"  
published: 2023-03-24  
updated: 2023-04-17  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/157560/what-is-the-difference-between-mysql-and-sql  
category: "database"  
tags: ["database", "mysql", "sql server", "sql"]  
reading_time: 2 minutes  

---

# What is the difference between MySQL and SQL?

What is the [difference](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/157114/good-news-or-bad-news-and-the-difference-is) between [MySQL](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/12156/what-is-mysql) and [SQL](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/13115/types-of-keys-in-sql-or-oracle-database)?

## Replies

### Reply by Aryan Kumar

MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses the SQL (Structured Query Language) as its standard language for managing and manipulating data. SQL, on the other hand, is a programming language that is used to manage and manipulate data in relational databases.

In other words, SQL and MySQL are database-related languages. While **SQL is a programming language used to work with data in relational databases, MySQL is an open-source database product that implements the SQL standard**.

### Reply by Krishnapriya Rajeev

**Structured Query Language (SQL)** is a powerful programming language that was created to work with relational databases. A relational database is a collection of data that is organized into tables, with each table consisting of columns and rows. SQL provides a standardized way of managing and querying data stored in these tables.

**MySQL**, on the other hand, is an *open-source relational database management system (RDBMS)* that is based on the SQL language. It is a software application that provides a mechanism for storing, organizing, and retrieving data in a relational database. MySQL is widely used as a database management system for websites and applications because of its reliability, scalability, and ease of use.

The key differences between the both of them are as follows:

| **SQL** | **MySQL** |
| --- | --- |
| It is a programming language that is used to manage data being stored in relational databases. | It is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses SQL. |
| SQL is used to query the data within databases. | MySQL is used to manage the relational databases using SQL. |
| It does not undergo frequent changes as it is a language. | It is being frequently updated as it is a software product. |


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