Strapi is a Node.js-based Content Management Framework designed to streamline API creation by leveraging built-in features such as an Admin Panel, Authentication, and Content Management. It functions as a bridge between a Node.js Framework and a Headless CMS, enabling rapid API development. Strapi APIs require a database, with MongoDB as the default, and developers can use mLab, a Database as a Service (DBaaS), to host their databases remotely, enhancing collaboration and avoiding local installations. This guide provides a step-by-step process for setting up an mLab database and integrating it with a Strapi project, including creating a user for database access, configuring the necessary database connections, and deploying the setup for development or production environments. The tutorial emphasizes the importance of hosting the database and API servers in the same cloud provider and region to optimize performance, and it includes recommendations for separating development and production databases to ensure data integrity.