MariaDB
Shares rank 6 of 22 databases by recommenders
Free open-source database praised for its feature set, openness and production use. Critics most often question the corporate ownership and its drift from MySQL.
Free open-source database praised for its feature set, openness and production use. Critics most often question the corporate ownership and its drift from MySQL.
62 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 40
- criticize it
- 22
- approval share
- 65%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 40 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Default choice among relational databases
“to me MariaDB is the default choice of relational DB after PostgreSQL”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “MariaDB: Promote getting to 10k GitHub stars in server log and client prompt” “your best bets are MariaDB or Postgres”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Vinyl Cache and Varnish Cache” “In my case I consider Postgres / MariaDB "regular, boring SQL".”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pipelined Relational Query Language, Pronounced "Prequel"” - Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “You Just Need Postgres”
- Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Stop using MySQL in 2026, it is not true open source”
Open source, actively developed
“there's literally zero risk of the MariaDB server suddenly going closed-source”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Lobste.rs is now running on SQLite” “it was being updated more regularly, and it was more fully open source”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres” “MariaDB feels safer because it stays active and builds in the open”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “MySQL users be warned: Git commits in MySQL-server significantly declined 2025” - Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Oracle slashes 30k jobs with a cold 6 a.m. email”
Versatile, from simple to serious use
“Postgres and MariaDB exist and you can run a business on them.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “I'm a Proud Luddite. That's Why I Use Linux” “wonderfully simple to use for somewhat casual use cases”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “PostgreSQL for Everything” “I think people ignore how versatile mariadb is”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “AliSQL: Alibaba's open-source MySQL with vector and DuckDB engines” - Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Vinyl Cache and Varnish Cache”
Easy to use, coherent system
“wraps an insane amount of complexity and smarts in a very coherent system”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Composition Shouldn't be this Hard” “using MariaDB is infinitely easier on Windows than Postgres”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “MariaDB: Promote getting to 10k GitHub stars in server log and client prompt” “wonderfully simple to use for somewhat casual use cases”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “PostgreSQL for Everything”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Corporate ownership eroding open-source trust
“The MariaDB Corporation financial problems have also spooked companies and so more of them are looking to switch to Postgres.”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Databases in 2025: A Year in Review” “MariaDB Inc doing practically everything the original MariaDB fork was meant to protect users from”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Dots: Always-on agents” “they are steadily making their OSS software completely dependent on the company (paid) versions”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Vinyl Cache and Varnish Cache” - Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Cruller: Bun's Zig Runtime, Continued on Zig 0.16”
- Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Vinyl Cache and Varnish Cache”
- Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Why we built yet another Postgres connection pooler”
Limited JSON and MEMORY engine support
“MariaDB's MEMORY engine has annoying limitations like no variable-length columns”
Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “You Just Need Postgres” “MariaDB still implemented JSON columns as LONGTEXT under the covers, making it a non-starter for any serious use of said type.”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Looking Ahead to Postgres 19” Trails MySQL on recovery and reliability
“IME MariaDB doesn't recover or run as reliably as modern versions of MySQL, at least with InnoDB.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres” “IMO Maria has fallen behind MySQL. I wouldn't chose it for anything my income depends on.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres”
Other databases people recommend
The four most recommended other databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | 816 | 233 | 78% | 13 | 10 yrs42 owners | Approved |
| MySQL | 124 | 107 | 54% | 12 | — | — |
| Microsoft SQL Server | 73 | 59 | 55% | 12 | 20 yrs6 owners | — |
| Microsoft Access | 62 | 39 | 61% | 12 | — | — |
| MariaDBThis page | 40 | 22 | 65% | 12 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 76 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Seems way more effective to be able to have all the server jazz, predicates, sharding, replication, backups”
“MariaDB Inc doing practically everything the original MariaDB fork was meant to protect users from”
“Postgres and MariaDB exist and you can run a business on them.”
“wonderfully simple to use for somewhat casual use cases”
“using MariaDB is infinitely easier on Windows than Postgres”
“to me MariaDB is the default choice of relational DB after PostgreSQL”
“feels more like the original devs sold the brand and kept business as usual with a new name”
“MariaDB fixed it, while providing an option to revert to the old behavior for MySQL compatibility”
“running mariadb or postgres on the same machine would deliver similar benefits without a risky migration”
“there's literally zero risk of the MariaDB server suddenly going closed-source”
“MySql / Mariadb is moving more and more behind commercial products”
“MariaDB still implemented JSON columns as LONGTEXT under the covers, making it a non-starter for any serious use of said type.”
“your best bets are MariaDB or Postgres”
“A huge chunk of the world's economy runs on async replication in FOSS MySQL/MariaDB”
“FOSS MariaDB is definitely not toy-scale only”
“they are steadily making their OSS software completely dependent on the company (paid) versions”
“MariaDB has shown itself to be every bit the corporate owned "FOSS" project”
“Most popular GUI stuff is from universe, as are quite a few dev tools.”
“MariaDB and PostgreSQL do not require all indices to be stored in RAM”
“wraps an insane amount of complexity and smarts in a very coherent system”
“Live a little, splurge on the 2GB server and MariaDB instead of SQLite!”
“MariaDB is fully open-source”
“MariaDB's MEMORY engine has annoying limitations like no variable-length columns”
“MariaDB did the job reasonably well.”
“In my case I consider Postgres / MariaDB "regular, boring SQL".”
“get your extension framework integrated into MariaDB or something”
“MariaDB’s transaction‑time cleanup doesn’t create the same operational surface area that PostgreSQL’s deferred cleanup does.”
“MariaDB is a lot better about everything being open/public, but they also tend to have similar delays on doc updates”
“The converse of this list would tell the diehard postgres user that mariadb is irrelevant to him.”
“I think people ignore how versatile mariadb is”
“Bluesky is just a twitter reboot, not unlike MariaDB vs MySQL.”
“depending on the queries, it can either be fine, or slow as balls”
“Happily using MariaDB (as packaged with Debian) in production here”
“MariaDB feels safer because it stays active and builds in the open”
“The MariaDB Corporation financial problems have also spooked companies and so more of them are looking to switch to Postgres.”
“IME MariaDB doesn't recover or run as reliably as modern versions of MySQL, at least with InnoDB.”
“it was being updated more regularly, and it was more fully open source”
“IMO Maria has fallen behind MySQL. I wouldn't chose it for anything my income depends on.”
“For MariaDB, SQLite, and Postgres, you can just use the RETURNING clause”
“If you don't need Oracle, or Microsoft SQL, or Postgres, Maria DB is great.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.