Have you been using MySQL for your web applications since your first foray into website development? Perhaps you now run, or are thinking about running, your own server and you will set up MySQL because that is what you have always used. Did you know there are alternatives? A NoSQL database is one of them, and it has its use cases, but that will need some consideration, and almost certainly some rewriting of your application, to take advantage of. Instead, let me talk to you about some databases that speak your applications language, namely MySQL's client server protocol.