What is a database?
Software built to store data, find it fast, and keep it safe when many people use it at once.
Every account, order and message in an app has to live somewhere, and survive a restart. That somewhere is a database.
What it is
A database is software built to store data, find it fast, and keep it safe when lots of people use it at once.
How it works
In the classic kind, data lives in tables, like spreadsheets with strict columns: a users table, an orders table. You ask questions in a language called SQL: give me every order from this user this month. The database works out the fastest way to find it, often using an index, like the index at the back of a book.
Why it matters
Spreadsheets fall apart when ten people edit at once. Databases are built for millions of reads and writes, and they don't lose your data halfway through a save.
