The mysql client is a tool which I use every day as a DBA. I think it's a great tool. When I used a client of several other SQL and NoSQL databases I was quickly reminded of all the features of the mysql client. Note that psql (PostgreSQL client) is also very nice. Some other interesting things about the mysql client: It is build from the same mysql-server repository as MySQL Server. The source is in client/mysql.cc . In addition to the server version it also reports 14.14 as its version. The previous version (14.13) was around the time of MySQL 5.1, so this version is mostly meaningless. If you start it it identifies itself as "MySQL monitor", not to be confused with MySQL Enterprise Monitor. The version of the client is not tightly coupled with the server, in most situations a 5.6 client works fine with a 5.7 server and vice versa. Note that there might be some minor annoyances if you use an older client with a newer server. For example: the 5.6 client doesn't ...