Both buttons say Export, but one runs in your browser and the other runs on the server. That single difference decides which one finishes — and which one dies halfway on a big database.
If you manage your own websites, you will meet both tools. phpMyAdmin is the friendly one already inside your hosting panel; mysqldump is the command-line one over SSH. Here is the honest comparison, including the failure each tool is famous for.
phpMyAdmin is a PHP web app. When you click Export, PHP builds the SQL file inside your browser session, under the server's PHP execution-time and memory limits. mysqldump is a native program that runs directly on the server from your SSH session — no browser, no PHP limits. Almost every difference below flows from this one fact.
For a small database — a blog, a small company site — both finish in seconds and the difference does not matter. As size grows, mysqldump wins clearly: it streams rows straight to the file (especially with --quick) and can pipe through gzip in the same motion, so you download one small compressed file instead of a huge raw SQL. phpMyAdmin spends its limited time building the same output inside a web request.
On shared hosting, PHP often stops scripts after 30–300 seconds. A large export then ends mid-table without any clear warning, and the downloaded file looks plausible. Always check the tail of a phpMyAdmin export for completeness, and for anything large, treat phpMyAdmin as the fallback, not the plan. Exporting table-by-table in groups is the workaround when SSH is not available.
The price of the speed is access and comfort: you need SSH access (not included in every cheap hosting plan) and you type commands instead of clicking. The command itself is short: mysqldump -u dbuser -p mydatabase | gzip > mydatabase.sql.gz. If your plan has no SSH, ask the host — many enable it on request.
The full bulk database download process — live demo, every step on screen.
▶️ Watch Full VideoPHP's maximum execution time on your hosting ran out. The export was still building when the server killed the script. Export fewer tables at a time, or switch to mysqldump over SSH for that database.
Yes. A .sql.gz from mysqldump is a standard format — import it with: gunzip < file.sql.gz | mysql -u user -p database_name. Just verify the dump completed before you rely on it.
Usually yes: use the panel full backup, or export the database in phpMyAdmin a few tables at a time. If both fail, ask your host to run the export for you — reputable hosts do this on request.