eXist is an open source database management system entirely built on XML technology, also called a native XML database. Unlike most relational database management systems, eXist uses XQuery, which is a W3C Recommendation, to manipulate its data.
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eXist allows software developers to persist XML data without writing extensive middleware. eXist follows and extends many W3C XML standards such as XQuery. eXist also supports REST interfaces for interfacing with AJAX-type web forms. Applications such as XForms may save their data by using just a few lines of code. The WebDAV interface to eXist allows users to "drag and drop" XML files directly into the eXist database. Because eXist automatically indexes documents using a keyword indexing system it is very easy to create high-performance document search systems with eXist.
eXist has support for the following standards and technologies
eXist was created in 2000 by Wolfgang Meier who still is the lead developer as of 2010. In September 2006, it reached version 1.0 and 1.1 (new numbering scheme). Current maintenance activities are on the 1.4.x versions and new developments are on the 1.5dev version that will be released as 1.6.0.
eXist was nominated in 2006 as the best XML database of the year by InfoWorld.
eXist is used heavily in the XRX web application architecture.