What is MariaDB

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what is MariaDB

MariaDB is one of the popular open-source database management systems in the United States and lots of organizations are using it. In the MariaDB tutorial, let us try to understand what is MariaDB? why do companies are preferring to use MariaDB over MySQL, etc?

Additionally, we will cover the following topics

  • What is MariaDB
  • History of MariaDB
  • Features of MariaDB
  • MariaDB Vs MySQL
  • Why use MariaDB over MySQL
  • Companies using MariaDB

What is MariaDB

MariaDB is a relational database management system (DBMS) that is an open-source alternative to the commonly used MySQL database technology. It was built as a software fork of MySQL in 2009 by developers who played important roles in creating the original database.

what is MariaDB
what is MariaDB

Read How to install MariaDB

History of MariaDB

Before the creation of MariaDB, MySQL was widely used as an open-source RDBMS but it was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008. Then, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010 including MySQL.

Michael Monty Widenius (the creator of MySQL) decided to fork MySQL and start a firm called Monty Program AB for a variety of reasons. Thus, MariaDB (Maria is the name of the second daughter of Michael Monty Widenius) was created.

MariaDB Foundation was founded in December 2012 to avoid what happened with MySQL in the past.

Features of MariaDB

MariaDB differs from MySQL and other open-source RDBMS in several ways. In this section, we will discuss a few features that make MariaDB stand out.

  • MariaDB includes a wide selection of storage engines which includes high-performance storage engines (for example – InnoDB, XtraDB, etc), for working with other RDBMS data sources.
  • It uses standard and popular query language.
  • It is platform-independent as it can run on various operating systems and supports a various number of programming languages.
  • MariaDB supports PHP, one of the most popular web development languages.
  • It offers Galera Cluster technology(Its main motive is to provide a high uptime, prevent loss of data if a node crashes, and be scalable for growth).
  • MariaDB also offers many operations which are not present in MySQL and removes/replaces features that reduce performance.

Read: MariaDB Not Between

MariaDB Vs MySQL

  • MariaDB has 12 new Storage engines whereas MySQL has less number of storage engine.
  • MariaDB has a larger connection pool as compared to MySQL.
  • Replication in MariaDB is faster, whereas replication in MySQL is slower.
  • MariaDB is an open-source database, whereas MySQL’s Enterprise Edition contains proprietary code.
  • Comparatively, MariaDB is faster than MySQL.
  • MariaDB doesn’t support data masking and dynamic column whereas MySQL supports.
  • With memory storage engine, INSERT statement can be implemented 24% faster than MySQL.

Read How To Check MariaDB Version

Why use MariaDB over MySQL

Because the two platforms are so similar, you may feel that switching from MySQL to MariaDB is pointless. But MariaDB comes with some additional capabilities which are not present in MySQL. These are some prominent reasons to make a switch

  • MariaDB has 12 new storage engines which boosts performance and prevents data loss which are not present in MySQL.
  • MariaDB is much faster than MySQL.
  • In MariaDB, replication can be done safer and faster as compared to MySQL.
  • Updates can also be done 2x faster as compared to traditional MySQL.
  • It has new features and extensions, such as JSON, WITH, and KILL statements, that MySQL does not have.
  • MariaDB offers tighter Security Measures as it comes with wider range of additional safety measures including internal security, password checks, PAM and LDAP authentication, etc.

Companies using MariaDB

What is MariaDB
Companies using MariaDB in USA

Most of the companies in the United States of America use MariaDB as their Database management system.

  • AWS – Amazon Web Services gives various services to their customer to pick whatever they want. One such service is of Database Service which includes Aurora MySQL, Aurora PostgreSQL, RDS MySQL, RDS PostgreSQL, RDS MariaDB, RDS Oracle.
  • Microsoft Azure – Same as AWS, Microsoft Azure uses MariaDB to provide Database services to their customers.
  • Red Hat – Red Hat needed a secure datastore with built-in active-active replication and MariaDB was chosen due to its high security standards and features like data-at-rest and data-in-motion encryption, authentication and role-based access control.

Also, read the following posts:

I hope you got an idea of what is MariaDB and an introduction to MariaDB. Additionally, we have covered the following topics

  • What is MariaDB
  • History of MariaDB
  • Features of MariaDB
  • MariaDB Vs MySQL
  • Why use MariaDB over MySQL
  • Companies using MariaDB