Overview
eXist-db is an open source database management system entirely built on XML technology. It stores XML data according to the XML data model and features efficient, index-based XQuery processing.
eXist-db supports many (web) technology standards making it an excellent application platform:
- XQuery 1.0 / XPath 2.0
- XSLT 1.0 (using Apache Xalan) or XSLT 2.0 (optional using Saxon)
- HTTP interfaces: REST, WebDAV, SOAP, XMLRPC, Atom Publishing Protocol
- XML database specific: XMLDB, XQJ/JSR-225 (under development), XUpdate, XQuery update extensions (to be aligned with the new XQuery Update Facility 1.0
eXist-db is highly compliant with the XQuery standard (current XQTS score is 99.4%). The query engine is highly extensible and features a large collection of XQuery Function Modules.
eXist-db provides a powerful environment for the development of web applications based on XQuery and related standards. Entire web applications can be written in XQuery, using XSLT, XHTML, CSS and Javascript (for AJAX functionality). XQuery server pages can be executed from the filesystem or stored in the database.
Community Support
The eXist-db has a large community of users and developers, which is very active. The primary medium for asking questions, getting help or posting bug reports or fixes is the project mailing list. To subscribe/unsubscribe visit the mailing lists page on sourceforge.
Previous messages posted on the mailinglists are archived on nabble.com and gmane.org provides a NNTP interface. Additionaly markmail.org provides a nice search interface to the exist-open and exist-commits mailing lists.
The project has an chat box #existdb which is accessible via IRC on irc.freenode.net and via an AJAX based web interface. The channel is open for general discussions on eXist and related subjects.
All eXist-db sources are freely available via a SourceForge subversion repository. The source code is made browsable and is continuously monitored and built.
License
eXist is released to the public under the terms of the GNU LGPL license.