# Requirements

## Web server

Since, phpMyAdmin’s interface is based entirely in your browser, you’ll need a web server (such as Apache, IIS) to install phpMyAdmin’s files into.

## PHP

- You need PHP 5.2.0 or newer, with `session` support, the Standard PHP Library (SPL) extension, JSON support, and the `mbstring` extension.
- To support uploading of ZIP files, you need the PHP `zip` extension.
- You need GD2 support in PHP to display inline thumbnails of JPEGs (“image/jpeg: inline”) with their original aspect ratio.
- When using the cookie authentication (the default), the mcrypt extension is strongly suggested for most users and is required for 64–bit machines. Not using mcrypt will cause phpMyAdmin to load pages significantly slower.
- To support upload progress bars, see 2.9 Seeing an upload progress bar.
- To support XML and Open Document Spreadsheet importing, you need PHP 5.2.17 or newer and the libxml extension.
- Performance suggestion: install the `ctype` extension.

See also

1.31 Does phpMyAdmin support PHP 5?, Using authentication modes

## Database

phpMyAdmin support MySQL compatible databases.

- MySQL 5.0 or newer
- MariaDB 5.0 or newer
- Drizzle

See also

1.17 Which MySQL versions does phpMyAdmin support?

## Web browser

To access phpMyAdmin you need a web browser with cookies and javascript enabled.