JDBC (Java Data Base Connectivity) is an API (Application Programming Interface) for connecting to databases from the Java environment.

JDBC is an alternative to ODBC. JDBC's Java interface is more comfortable to Java programmers than ODBC's C language interface.

JDBC is included with both J2SE and J2EE.

If no JDBC driver is available for your needs, a JDBC-ODBC bridge may be used to connect to an ODBC driver via the JDBC API. Java 2 includes a JDBC-ODBC bridge for Solaris and Microsoft Windows.