# phpMyAdmin

While MySQL and MariaDB are management systems and do not REQUIRE any other tools to used them, they DO require using the command line interface (CLI) to interact with them directly. Using a CLI can be intimidating for some beginners and cumbersome for even the most experienced developers.

Fortunately, there are many database tools that allow interaction to occur with MySQL or MariaDB using a Graphic User Interface (GUI). One of the most popular tools available today is phpMyAdmin.

phpMyAdmin is a free, open-source tool for handling the adminstration of MySQL or MariaDB over the web. It is in fact an interactive web application, build on PHP and can be used to perform all of the most frequent operations when managing databases and the data inside them.