Why MySQL Became DB-Engines’ 2019 DBMS of the Year and What It Means

Annual DBMS: MySQL

According to DB-Engines, MySQL was the most popular DBMS in 2019, surpassing 350 other systems and earning the title of DBMS of the Year.

MySQL originated 25 years ago when Michael “Monty” Widenius and colleagues created it for personal use, quickly becoming a core component of the LAMP stack.

After Sun’s 2008 acquisition, concerns arose about the future of the open‑source project, which intensified when Oracle bought Sun two years later. In response, Monty Widenius forked MySQL to create MariaDB.

Oracle, however, continued to support MySQL by offering both an enterprise edition and a competitive community edition. MySQL 8.0, released in 2018, introduced significant speed improvements and added NoSQL document storage and JSON support.

Runner‑up: Oracle

Oracle’s popularity has fluctuated over the past eight years, dropping after 2015 but climbing again in 2019 to remain the top‑ranked DBMS on the DB‑Engines list, as confirmed by Gartner reports.

Third Place: Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server, the 2016 DBMS of the Year, also maintained high popularity in 2019 and continues to be a flagship product despite Microsoft’s broader cloud offerings.

Conclusion

DB‑Engines notes that the top three databases are mature relational systems, but this does not signal the demise of NoSQL. The top‑10 list still includes MongoDB, Elasticsearch, and Redis, and many NoSQL databases continue to grow.

Furthermore, relational databases have incorporated many NoSQL features, such as document stores and graph models, blurring the boundaries between traditional RDBMS and newer data models.

For detailed rankings, see the DB‑Engines website.