What are the key dif­fer­ences in a MariaDB vs. MySQL com­par­i­son?

MariaDB or MySQL – which database man­age­ment system has the edge? Initially, MariaDB aimed to create a drop-in re­place­ment with strong open-source community standards, but now both projects follow com­plete­ly different de­vel­op­ment goals. Discover what sets them apart with us.

An overview of the key features of MariaDB and MySQL

MySQL is a proven database man­age­ment system available as open-source software, com­ple­ment­ed by numerous en­ter­prise ex­ten­sions. The MariaDB de­vel­op­ment team, led by Michael Widenius, has improved MySQL’s core software by in­cor­po­rat­ing a variety of new features. Who might consider switching from MySQL to MariaDB? The table below high­lights the key dif­fer­ences between both DBMS.

The de­vel­op­ment of MySQL and MariaDB

A key figure behind MariaDB and MySQL is Finnish software developer Michael “Monty” Widenius. Together with the Swedes David Axmark and Alan Larsson, Widenius founded the joint-stock company MySQL AB, which released the first version of the open-source database man­age­ment system (DBMS) MySQL in 1995. This cul­mi­nat­ed in the sale of the software project to Sun Mi­crosys­tems in 2008. In 2009, Widenius left the software project along with other MySQL core de­vel­op­ers and focused on de­vel­op­ing the MySQL fork MariaDB. The de­vel­op­ment team feared that Oracle would face a conflict of interest if the company developed the open-source software MySQL alongside pro­pri­etary database software.

The de­vel­op­ment of the MySQL fork initially took place through Monty Program AB, founded in 2009. This merged with SkySQL in 2014 to form the MariaDB Cor­po­ra­tion. The Community Project MariaDB Server is developed by the MariaDB Foun­da­tion. MariaDB strongly focuses on open de­vel­op­ment. Two prin­ci­ples are at the forefront:

• The source code of program parts under de­vel­op­ment is available through public repos­i­to­ries.
• All de­vel­op­ment steps are publicly doc­u­ment­ed.

Com­par­i­son of MariaDB vs. MySQL

The database man­age­ment systems MySQL and MariaDB are based on the same software core. MariaDB is a fork (a split) from MySQL 5.1, but over time, it has developed into an in­de­pen­dent database man­age­ment system. We compare the dif­fer­ences between the current MariaDB and MySQL GA versions (General Avail­abil­i­ty) MySQL 8.0.43 and MariaDB 11.8.2.

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Database structure

The de­vel­op­ment of MariaDB aims to maintain full com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with MySQL’s database structure, APIs, and con­fig­u­ra­tion files, offering users a seamless drop-in re­place­ment. An upgrade from MySQL to MariaDB or vice versa should be just as easy as an upgrade between two different MySQL versions.

In principle, both database man­age­ment systems are based on the same database structure. Both systems adhere to the re­la­tion­al database model. However, for ad­min­is­tra­tive tasks and backups, starting with MariaDB version 10.5, mariadb-dump and mariadb-admin are used instead of mysqldump or mysqladmin as in MySQL.

Database engines

MariaDB aims to dif­fer­en­ti­ate itself from MySQL in the future primarily through flex­i­bil­i­ty. Users have access to a con­sis­tent­ly growing number of al­ter­na­tive database engines for special use cases, in addition to the standard engines supported by MySQL.

A database engine is a storage subsystem that enables the database man­age­ment system to create, read, update, and delete data in database tables – see CRUD.

The following table shows the available database engines for MySQL 8.0.43 and MariaDB 11.8.2 (according to the doc­u­men­ta­tion).

Database queries

In practice, MySQL and MariaDB are virtually identical. Both DBMS strive for full com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the SQL database language, allowing users to use the same SQL state­ments to create, update, retrieve, or delete database entries.

Per­for­mance

Does MariaDB offer better per­for­mance compared to MySQL? Benchmark tests like the DBT-3 suggest it might. An important factor is the database engine being used. Both developer com­mu­ni­ties provide benchmark tests for setups with different database engines on their re­spec­tive project websites.

MariaDB scores here not only with a wide selection of al­ter­na­tive database engines, but it also offers an efficient optimizer for SQL queries. Starting with version 10.0.1, MariaDB no longer relies on internal sta­tis­tics of the re­spec­tive database engine for query op­ti­miza­tion, but on engine-in­de­pen­dent table sta­tis­tics. These are stored as con­ven­tion­al tables in the database and allow for gathering and eval­u­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly more data to determine an optimal plan for executing SQL state­ments.

High avail­abil­i­ty

Both MySQL and MariaDB are suitable for scenarios with dis­trib­uted databases. To offer users highly available systems with linear scal­a­bil­i­ty, both software projects provide cluster solutions:

• MySQL Cluster
• MariaDB Galera Cluster

MySQL Cluster is an ACID-compliant real-time database with a multi-master ar­chi­tec­ture and no single point of failure. It offers up to 99.9999% avail­abil­i­ty, hor­i­zon­tal scaling on standard hardware, auto-sharding, as well as SQL and NoSQL in­ter­faces.

MariaDB Galera Cluster has been directly in­te­grat­ed since version 10.1. It also features a multi-master ar­chi­tec­ture and ex­clu­sive­ly uses InnoDB (or XtraDB). MaxScale is also employed for dis­trib­uted databases. The con­fig­urable proxy for load balancing provides features like failover, caching, read/write splitting, and DoS pro­tec­tion. Plugins provide the ability to customize and filter database access.

Security

Both MySQL and MariaDB offer en­cryp­tion features for data at rest. MySQL im­ple­ments en­cryp­tion of data stored in the database using the database engine InnoDB at the ta­ble­space level. En­cryp­tion of in­di­vid­ual database tables is not possible.

Ta­ble­spaces are logical storage units of re­la­tion­al database engines like InnoDB, which contain all data of the database system. Each ta­ble­space includes at least one datafile—a physical file of the un­der­ly­ing operating system where both database tables and indexes are stored.

Since version 10.1, MariaDB offers sig­nif­i­cant­ly more dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed en­cryp­tion features. These include data-at-rest en­cryp­tion at the following database levels:

• InnoDB ta­ble­spaces
• InnoDB tables
• InnoDB log files
• Aria tables
• Temporary files
• Binary log data

MariaDB also offers a feature with rolling en­cryp­tion keys that allows you to set an ex­pi­ra­tion date for en­cryp­tion keys.

Both database man­age­ment systems support the Key Man­age­ment Service (KMS) from Amazon Web Services (AWS) via plugin, as well as SSL-encrypted con­nec­tions. For user au­then­ti­ca­tion, MySQL and MariaDB also rely on a plugin system. The MySQL de­vel­op­ment team provides users with two au­then­ti­ca­tion plugins, sha256_password and caching_sha2_password. The latter offers server-side caching in addition to standard au­then­ti­ca­tion via Secure Hash Algorithm, enabling faster re-au­then­ti­ca­tion. MariaDB also used SHA-1 with the Secure Hash Algorithm up to version 10.1.21. Since version 10.1.22, the ed25519 plugin has been employed. Ed25519 is an EdDSA signature scheme that combines SHA-2 with Curve25519.

A unique feature of MariaDB in the field of database security is the role-based access control Role Based Access Control, RBAC, which has been natively im­ple­ment­ed in the DBMS since version 10.0.5. It sig­nif­i­cant­ly sim­pli­fies the man­age­ment of access rights and reduces errors in manual rights as­sign­ment. However, MySQL has caught up with this feature: Since MySQL 8.0.0 (2018), MySQL also supports roles as part of its user and rights man­age­ment functions.

Ecosystem

With the dual licensing system, Oracle pursues an open-core strategy with MySQL. While the core program MySQL is available free of charge as a community edition with public source code, various ex­ten­sions for the database man­age­ment system are offered only in com­bi­na­tion with one of the com­mer­cial editions. However, thanks to a strong con­nec­tion with the open-source community, the MariaDB de­vel­op­ment team is able to implement in­ter­faces to open-source al­ter­na­tives to most pro­pri­etary MySQL products in MariaDB.

Support

Pro­fes­sion­al support is available for both MySQL and MariaDB only for paying customers. MySQL provides 24/7 support, patches, updates, technical advice, and remote trou­bleshoot­ing through the paid Oracle Premier Support license.

The MariaDB Cor­po­ra­tion also provides 24/7 support, security updates, per­for­mance con­sult­ing, and migration as­sis­tance under a sub­scrip­tion - even for MySQL. Since many original MySQL de­vel­op­ers now work at MariaDB, the company boasts deep expertise in both systems.

Doc­u­men­ta­tion and community

MySQL is owned by the Oracle Cor­po­ra­tion, which publishes extensive doc­u­men­ta­tion of all open-source MySQL projects on the official MySQL website. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the user community has the following options to learn about MySQL:

• MySQL Events
• MySQL User Groups

Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the doc­u­men­ta­tion of MariaDB lies with the MariaDB Foun­da­tion, which relies on the user community. Those who wish to con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment and doc­u­men­ta­tion of MariaDB servers or open-source ap­pli­ca­tions in the MariaDB ecosystem can find relevant in­for­ma­tion on the MariaDB Foun­da­tion website.

What use cases are suitable for MariaDB or MySQL?

MariaDB is well-suited for internal business ap­pli­ca­tions that you want to operate without license costs. Many companies use MariaDB in web platforms, content man­age­ment systems, or as a database for reporting and analysis. In dis­trib­uted systems with many si­mul­ta­ne­ous read and write accesses, MariaDB also shows strengths. If you are working on Linux servers or want to replace a MySQL in­stal­la­tion, you benefit from com­pat­i­bil­i­ty and ex­ten­si­bil­i­ty.

MySQL showcases its strengths in large, stable pro­duc­tion systems. Typical use cases include online shops, booking systems, SaaS platforms, or financial ap­pli­ca­tions with high re­quire­ments for avail­abil­i­ty and trans­ac­tion security. If you’re operating ap­pli­ca­tions in the cloud—such as on AWS, Google Cloud, or Oracle Cloud—you often directly resort to MySQL. MySQL is also the right choice for highly struc­tured JSON pro­cess­ing or when you need SLA-backed support.

Con­clu­sion to the MariaDB vs. MySQL com­par­i­son

MySQL is a mature database system with wide­spread use. However, many en­ter­prise features like mon­i­tor­ing, backup, and security are only included in paid editions. MariaDB was developed as a fork of MySQL and has es­tab­lished itself as a fully-fledged open-source al­ter­na­tive. Many Linux dis­tri­b­u­tions use it by default. Exclusive features like MaxScale and Column­Store demon­strate its growing in­de­pen­dence.

The decision between MySQL and MariaDB ul­ti­mate­ly depends less on the name and more on which system better fits your ap­pli­ca­tion scenario.