InnoDB
InnoDB is a high-performance, transactional storage engine for MySQL and MariaDB databases, designed for reliability and concurrency. It supports ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliance, row-level locking, and foreign key constraints, making it suitable for applications requiring robust data integrity and multi-user access. As the default storage engine in MySQL since version 5.5, it is widely used for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads.
Developers should use InnoDB when building applications that demand strong data consistency, such as e-commerce platforms, banking systems, or any scenario involving frequent updates and concurrent transactions. It is essential for projects requiring foreign key relationships to enforce referential integrity, and its crash recovery features make it ideal for production environments where data durability is critical. InnoDB's performance optimizations, like buffer pools and adaptive hash indexing, also benefit read-heavy and mixed workloads.