MySQL is a fast, efficient, secure, stable, easy-to-use, multi-platform, multi-threaded, multi-user, and well-documented relational database manager/server. Currently Oracle guides the development of MySQL, however the community version is available under the GPL license so it is still free software.

MySQL 8.0:

• Add a new caching_sha2_password authentication plugin is available. Like the sha256_password plugin, caching_sha2_password implements SHA-256 password hashing, but uses caching to address latency issues at connect time.
• Supports roles, which are named collections of privileges. Roles can be created and dropped. Roles can have privileges granted to and revoked from them. Roles can be granted to and revoked from user accounts.
• Incorporates the concept of user account categories, with system and regular users distinguished according to whether they have the SYSTEM_USER privilege
• Maintains information about password history, enabling restrictions on reuse of previous passwords also it is possible to configure user accounts such that too many consecutive login failures due to incorrect passwords cause temporary account locking.
• Add the new authentication mechanism: caching_sha2_password that implements the SHA-256 encryption algorithm (like the sha256_password mechanism) but using a cache to solve latency problems during the connection process.
• Incorporates several improvements to the InnoDB engine and the JSON data type.