Difference between MariaDB and MySQL

Both MariaDB and MySQL are the types of Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), which are free and open-source software. In 2009, Michael Monty Widenius, the founder of MySQL, decided to develop a fork of MySQL and named it MariaDB. MariaDB provides commercial support to MySQL.

Both RDBMS software is used to store data as a tabular form in the database and have their benefits, so the organization's better choice depends on the specific requirements and goals. Let us understand the essential differences between MariaDB and MySQL on the following basis:

Let's understand the difference between MariaDB and MySQL on the following basis:

1) Initial Release and Stable Release

MariaDB was initially released on 29 October 2009. It had its stable release on 12 May 2020. In contrast, MySQL was initially released on 23 May 1995. Its stable release was on 27 April 2020.

2) Developers

MariaDB was developed by MariaDB Corporation AB, MariaDB Foundation. In contrast, MySQL was originally started by a Swedish company, MySQL AB, in 1994. In 2008, Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB. Later, in 2010, Sun Microsystems was led by Oracle Corporation. Thus, Oracle Corporation develops and maintains MySQL at present.

3) Programming Languages used

MariaDB is written in C, C++, Perl, and Bash programming languages. In contrast MySQL is written in C and C++ programming languages.

4) Users

MariaDB prominent customers are DBS, Red hat, Google, Ubuntu, Wikipedia, SuSE, etc. while MySQL prominent users are YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, NASA, Tesla, etc.

5) Compatibility

MySQL is an open-source RDBMS that stores data in the form of tables, triggers, views, or stored procedures. It uses different keys, such as a unique key, primary key, foreign key, etc. to maintain data integrity and redundancy. On the other hand, MariaDB is an extended version (fork) of MySQL having new extensive features, such as Cursors with parameters, INVISIBLE columns, NEW statements, and many more. These additional features make it excellent that help us to replace MySQL with MariaDB. It has a similar database structure and indexes as MySQL. Therefore, it is compatible to import/export our application from MySQL to MariaDB without any alteration and modification.

6) Versions

In MySQL, there exists a version gap between 5.1 and 5.5. The latest release of MySQL is v5.8. While, MariaDB has continuous versions as 5.2, 5.3. MariaDB version 5.5 carries all the features of MySQL version 5.5. The latest release of MariaDB is v10.4.

7) Storage Engines

In MySQL, BLACKHOLE, MyISAM, MERGE, InnoDB, CSV, etc. storage engines are included for data storage. On the other hand, MariaDB includes 12 new additional storage engines with MariaDB sources and Binary Packages.

8) Encryption

MariaDB provides support to temporary table encryption as well as binary log encryption. On the other hand, MySQL does not provide support to the temporary table's encryption and binary log encryption. But, it encrypts the undo/redo logs when they are configured to do so.

9) Password Validation

MySQL consists of a default feature of improving security by validating and testing the passwords. Whereas MariaDB does not offer such features.

10) Performance

As MariaDB consists of more storage engines, it provides fast execution of different operations such as insert, update, and delete on the data. MariaDB's performance is 4x times faster than MySQL. In contrast, MySQL cannot execute as fast as MariaDB can.

11) Replication

Different versions of MariaDB allow us to replicate data from MySQL server to the MariaDB server. In contrast, MySQL versions do not allow data to replicate from the MariaDB server to it. MySQL offers master-slave replication, whereas MariaDB offers master-master and master-slave replication of the data.

12) Cloud Platforms

MySQL is available as a managed service on Google Cloud platforms, and as a service on Amazon Web Services(AWS), Rackspace Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. On the other hand, MariaDB is available as a service on Rackspace Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS only.

13) License

MariaDB contains only one license of GPLv2 (for community server). While MySQL provides two licenses: GPLv2 (for community server) and Enterprise license.

14) Syntax

Although there are many differences between MariaDB and MySQL, the syntactical structure is the same for both.

Let's see how:

To select all records from the STUDENT table:

To delete records from the STUDENT table:

MariaDB vs. MySQL

Let us summarise the above differences in tabular form.

Features of MySQL

The essential features of the MySQL database are given below:

• MySQL is a relational database management system and easy to use. We can build and interact with MySQL by using only a few simple SQL statements.
• It is secure because passwords are encrypted in MySQL.
• It follows a client /server model.
• It is free and open-source.
• It is easily scalable and provides high performance, high flexibility, and high productivity.
• It has robust transactional support that allows transactions to be rolled back, commit, and crash recovery.

Features of MariaDB

The essential features of the MariaDB database are given below:

• It is free, open-source, and licensed under the GPL, LGPL, or BSD.
• It provides backward compatibility.
• It is based on the MySQL community version. It is because MariaDB is the improved version of MySQL.
• It gives many storage engines, including high-performance storage engines, for working with other RDBMS data sources.
• It can run on various operating systems and supports a variety of programming languages.
• It has support for PHP, which is one of the popular web development languages.
• It offers Galera cluster technology.