How to get the max of two values in MySQL?

Use GREATEST()

E.g.:

SELECT GREATEST(2,1);

Note: Whenever if any single value contains null at that time this function always returns null (Thanks to user @sanghavi7)

To get the maximum value of a column across a set of rows:

SELECT MAX(column1) FROM table; -- expect one result

To get the maximum value of a set of columns, literals, or variables for each row:

SELECT GREATEST(column1, 1, 0, @val) FROM table; -- expect many results

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