# Getting Started - Vapor Docs

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Warning

MySQL 3.0 is still in beta. Some documentation may be missing or out of date.

# Getting Started with MySQL

MySQL is a widely-used, open-source database. It has an extremely popular wire-protocol that other open-source databases like MariaDB also support.

You can use MySQL with Vapor (or any server-side Swift framework) by either:

- Using Fluent MySQL ORM.
- Use just MySQL core.

We recommend using the ORM since it does a lot of the hard work for you. Check out the respective guides to learn more.