ADOdb is a fast, easy to use, popular database abstraction layer for PHP. It allows the same code to be used when accessing a wide range of databases.

It has been actively maintained since 2000 by the project's founder, John Lim, who decided to retire in 2013. Damien Regad and Mark Newnham took over the project, with the help of numerous community contributors.

ADOdb contains components for querying and updating databases, as well as an Object Orientated Active Record library, schema management and performance monitoring. It also contains the following standalone extensions:

• A (deprecated) Date/Time library to handle dates outside of the normal PHP limits.
• A Session Management library that extends the normal PHP functionality to allow storing of session management data in a database, or in encrypted values

Note that ADOdb is not a replacement for the native PHP database extensions, but is built on top of them. This means that the corresponding driver(s) must be installed and correctly configured for ADOdb to work.

ADOdb is compatible with and supported on all active versions of PHP (>= 7.4 as of this writing), including PHP 8.3. See PHP Compatibility Status for further details.

It is expected to work as well on earlier, legacy PHP versions per table below, but this is not officially supported or tested.

Download the software using the links on the right, and unpack it into the directory of your choice.

This is the recommended installation method. ADOdb is available on Packagist.

composer require adodb/adodb-php ^5.22

composer require adodb/adodb-php dev-master

ADOdb's source code and bug tracker are located at Github.

See also the legacy SourceForge project page, where you can download the official release zip / tarballs.

Start a thread in GitHub discussions.

If you found a bug in the code, wish to propose a new feature or request an enhancement, please create an issue in the Github issue tracker.

To help with quick resolution:

• Try running the code with Debug Mode enabled
• Give the version of ADOdb you are using. Please check the top of this page for the earliest release that is supported by the community.
• Give the version of PHP you are using, the operating system, the driver and the database version.
• Provide a code snippet, and if possible a description of what you are expecting to receive from a function

You can also ask questions on

• Stack Overflow using a tag of adodb-php
• Chat with the ADOdb community on Gitter

We are a very small team with very limited resources, and unfortunately can't afford to maintain the older versions in parallel with the current stable releases and the development track.

For the same reason, we decided to drop compatibility with old PHP versions as it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain it while adapting to the latest changes. This allows us to leverage new language features, make use of 3rd party libraries, and reduce maintenance effort at the same time.

We strongly recommend that you always run the latest stable release, which is the only one that is actively maintained; this includes bug fixes and compatibility updates for newer PHP versions.

Legacy version 5.21.0 was released in February 2021, and only receives security and critical bug fixes. If you are still running an older version, you should at the very least upgrade to that, and we actually strongly advise to apply the latest hotfix release (5.21.4).

The ADOdb user base is large, with an average of 300 downloads a week. We have put together a short list of some current projects. See also the dependencies, i.e. the list of GitHub repositories require ADOdb in their composer.json file.

You are welcome to contribute to the project and help the Open Source community:

• Share your experience, e.g. on Twitter @ADOdb_announce
• Answer user questions in the issue tracker
• Submit your bug fixes, enhancements or new features via GitHub pull requests
• Check the dormant tag; if you have expertise in the Databases listed, consider helping us out
• Help us improve Documentation, both developer and user. It has recently been converted from old html files, and may contain numerous errors.

Follow us on @ADOdb_announce on Twitter. We post notices of new releases and important bug fixes first there.

2000-2013 © John Lim
2014 © Damien Regad, Mark Newnham & The ADOdb Community

ADODb is dual-licensed under the BSD and Lesser GPL license, with the BSD License having priority.