What is the difference between mysqli and PDO in PHP?

Both MySQLi and PDO (PHP Data Objects) are used to connect PHP with a database. Both support prepared statements, so both can protect from SQL injection.

Feature	MySQLi	PDO
Databases supported	MySQL and MariaDB only	12 different databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite and more)
Style	Procedural and object oriented	Object oriented only
Named parameters (:email)	No, only ?	Yes, and also ?
Switching database later	Need to rewrite the code	Mostly change only the connection string
Error handling	Exceptions (default from PHP 8.1)	Exceptions (when you set the error mode)

<?php
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=student;charset=utf8mb4", "root", "");
$pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT name FROM users WHERE email = :email");
$stmt->execute(["email" => "ram@example.com"]);

echo $stmt->fetchColumn();
?>

Output:

Use PDO if you may change the database in future, or you like named parameters. Use MySQLi if you work only with MySQL and want its extra features. See MySQLi prepared statements and MySQLi procedural vs object oriented.

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