MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...
of the
MySQL
MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...
relational database management system
A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relati ...
(RDBMS), intended to remain
free and open-source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
under the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...
. Development is led by some of the original developers of MySQL, who forked it due to concerns over its
acquisition by
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
in 2009.
MariaDB is intended to maintain high compatibility with MySQL, with library binary parity and exact matching with MySQL
APIs and commands, allowing it in many cases to function as drop-in replacement for MySQL. However, new features are diverging. It includes new
storage engine
A database engine (or storage engine) is the underlying software component that a database management system (DBMS) uses to create, read, update and delete (CRUD) data from a database. Most database management systems include their own application ...
s like
Aria
In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...
,
ColumnStore, and
MyRocks
MyRocks is open-source software developed at Facebook in order to use MySQL features with RocksDB implementations. It is based on Oracle MySQL 5.6.
Starting from version 10.2.5, MariaDB includes MyRocks as an alpha-stage storage engine.
MariaDB ...
.
Its lead developer/CTO is
Michael "Monty" Widenius, one of the founders of
MySQL AB
MySQL AB was a Swedish software company founded in 1995. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, Sun was in turn acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2010. MySQL AB is the creator of MySQL, a relational database management system, as well as ...
and the founder of Monty Program AB. On 16 January 2008, MySQL AB announced that it had agreed to be acquired by
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
for approximately $1 billion. The acquisition completed on 26 February 2008. Sun was then bought the following year by
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
. MariaDB is named after Widenius' younger daughter, Maria. (MySQL is named after his other daughter, My.)
Features
MariaDB Server
Versioning
MariaDB version numbers follow MySQL's numbering scheme up to version 5.5. Thus, MariaDB 5.5 offers all of the MySQL 5.5 features. There exists a gap in MySQL versions between 5.1 and 5.5, while MariaDB issued 5.2 and 5.3 point releases.
Since specific new features have been developed in MariaDB, the developers decided that a major version number change was necessary.
Licensing
The MariaDB Foundation mentions:
MariaDB Server will remain Free and Open Source Software licensed under GPLv2, independent of any commercial entities.
Third-party software
MariaDB's API and protocol are compatible with those used by MySQL, plus some features to support native non-blocking operations and progress reporting. This means that all connectors, libraries and applications which work with MySQL should also work on MariaDB—whether or not they support its native features. On this basis,
Fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...
developers replaced MySQL with MariaDB in Fedora 19, out of concerns that Oracle was making MySQL a more closed software project.
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project e ...
likewise in April 2013 dropped MySQL for MariaDB 5.5.
However, for recent MySQL features, MariaDB either has no equivalent yet (like geographic function) or deliberately chose not to be 100% compatible (like GTID,
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other se ...
). The list of incompatibilities grows longer with each version.
Prominent users
MariaDB is used at
ServiceNow
ServiceNow is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California that develops a cloud computing platform to help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Founded in 2003 by Fred Luddy, ServiceNow is listed on the ...
,
DBS Bank
DBS Bank Limited, often known as DBS, is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at the Marina Bay Financial Centre in the Marina Bay district of Singapore. The bank was previously known as The Dev ...
,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Mozilla
Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, ...
, and, since 2013, the
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...
.
Several Linux distributions and
BSD operating systems include MariaDB. Some default to MariaDB, such as
Arch Linux
Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...
,
Manjaro
Manjaro ( ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source Linux distribution based on the Arch Linux operating system that has a focus on user-friendliness and accessibility. It uses a rolling release update model and Pacman package ...
,
Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...
(from
Debian 9),
Fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...
(from
Fedora 19),
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop ...
(from
RHEL 7 in June 2014),
CentOS
CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...
(from CentOS 7),
Mageia
Mageia is a Linux-based operating system, distributed as free and open source software. It was forked from the Mandriva Linux distribution. The Greek term () means enchantment, fascination, glamour, wizardry.
The first release of the soft ...
(from Mageia 2),
openSUSE
openSUSE () is a free and open source RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project.
The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0.
Additionally the project creates a variety of tools, s ...
(from openSUSE 12.3 Dartmouth),
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise (often abbreviated to SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop com ...
(from SLES 12),
Slackware Linux (from Slackware 14.1),
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project e ...
(from 5.7), and
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
.
MariaDB Foundation
![Kaj Arnö at FOSDEM 2019 in Brussels 03](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Kaj_Arn%C3%B6_at_FOSDEM_2019_in_Brussels_03.jpg)
The MariaDB Foundation was founded in 2012 to oversee the development of MariaDB.
The current CEO of the MariaDB Foundation is
Kaj Arnö
Kaj Sigurd Ademar Arnö (born 29 June 1963 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finland Swedish IT-entrepreneur and columnist. He is since 2016 (also) a German citizen and has lived in Germany since 2006. He is the former Vice President of the MySQL Communi ...
since February 2019.
The Foundation describes its mission as the following:
The cornerstones of the MariaDB Foundation mission are Openness, Adoption, and Continuity.
* We ensure the MariaDB Server code base remains open for usage and contributions on technical merits.
* We strive to increase adoption by users and across use cases, platforms and means of deployment.
* We provide continuity to the MariaDB Server ecosystem, independent of any commercial entities.
Notable sponsors of MariaDB Foundation
The most notable sponsors of MariaDB Foundation are
Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud, also known as Aliyun (), is a cloud computing company, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services to online businesses and Alibaba's own e-commerce ecosystem. Its international operations are re ...
,
Tencent Cloud,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
,
MariaDB Corporation Ab,
ServiceNow
ServiceNow is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California that develops a cloud computing platform to help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Founded in 2003 by Fred Luddy, ServiceNow is listed on the ...
,
Schaffhausen Institute of Technology
Constructor, formerly known as Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (SIT) is a private non-profit institute in Switzerland founded in 2019 by entrepreneur Serguei Beloussov. History
The institute focuses on computer and software sciences and is ...
,
IBM, and
DBS Bank
DBS Bank Limited, often known as DBS, is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at the Marina Bay Financial Centre in the Marina Bay district of Singapore. The bank was previously known as The Dev ...
.
The Foundation also works with technology partners, e.g.
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
tasked one of its engineers to work at the MariaDB Foundation in 2013.
History of MariaDB Foundation
In December 2012
Michael Widenius
Ulf Michael Widenius (often called Monty; born 3 March 1962, in Helsinki, Finland) is the main author of the original version of the open source MySQL database, a founding member of the MySQL AB company and CTO of the MariaDB Corporation AB. ...
,
David Axmark, and Allan Larsson announced the formation of a foundation that would oversee the development of MariaDB.
At the time of founding in 2013 the Foundation wished to create a
governance
Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the g ...
model similar to that used by the
Eclipse Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation AISBL is an independent, Europe-based not-for-profit corporation that acts as a steward of the Eclipse open source software development community, with legal jurisdiction in the European Union. It is an organization suppo ...
. The Board appointed the Eclipse Foundation's Executive Director Mike Milinkovich as an advisor to lead the transition.
The MariaDB Foundation's first sponsor and member was MariaDB Corporation Ab that joined in 2014 after initial agreements on the division of ownership and roles between the MariaDB Foundation and MariaDB Corporation.
E.g. MariaDB is a registered trademark of MariaDB Corporation
Ab, used under license by the MariaDB Foundation. MariaDB Corporation Ab was originally founded in 2010 as SkySQL Corporation Ab, but changed name in 2014 to reflect its role as the main driving force behind the development of MariaDB server and the biggest support-provider for it. Foundation CEO at the time,
Simon Phipps quit in 2014 on the sale of the MariaDB trademark to SkySQL. He later said: "I quit as soon as it was obvious the company was not going to allow an independent foundation."
Simon Phipps was CEO of the Foundation from April 2013 to 2014. Otto Kekäläinen was the CEO from January 2015 to September 2018.
[
] Arjen Lentz was appointed CEO of the Foundation in October 2018 and resigned in December 2018.
Kaj Arnö
Kaj Sigurd Ademar Arnö (born 29 June 1963 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finland Swedish IT-entrepreneur and columnist. He is since 2016 (also) a German citizen and has lived in Germany since 2006. He is the former Vice President of the MySQL Communi ...
joined as the CEO on 1 February 2019.
Eric Herman is the current chairman of the board.
MariaDB Corporation Ab
Initially, the development activities around MariaDB were based entirely on open source and non-commercial. To build a global business, MariaDB Corporation Ab was founded in 2010 by
Patrik Backman,
Ralf Wahlsten,
Kaj Arnö
Kaj Sigurd Ademar Arnö (born 29 June 1963 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finland Swedish IT-entrepreneur and columnist. He is since 2016 (also) a German citizen and has lived in Germany since 2006. He is the former Vice President of the MySQL Communi ...
,
Max Mether,
Ulf Sandberg,
Mick Carney and
Michael "Monty" Widenius. The current CEO of MariaDB Corporation is
Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne (born Michael Hecht; 7 July 1941) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held cabinet posit ...
.
MariaDB Corporation Ab was formed after a merger between SkySQL Corporation Ab and Monty Program on 23 April 2013. Subsequently, the name was changed on 1 October 2014 to reflect the company's role as the main driving force behind the development of MariaDB Server and the largest support-provider for it.
MariaDB Corporation Ab announced in February 2022 its intention to become a publicly listed company on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...
(NYSE).
Products of MariaDB Corporation Ab
MariaDB Corporation Ab is a contributor to the
MariaDB Server, develops the MariaDB database connectors (
C,
C++
C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
,
Java 7
The Java language has undergone several changes since JDK 1.0 as well as numerous additions of classes and packages to the standard library. Since J2SE 1.4, the evolution of the Java language has been governed by the Java Community ...
,
Java 8
The Java (programming language), Java language has undergone several changes since Java Development Kit, JDK 1.0 as well as numerous additions of class (computer science), classes and packages to the standard library (computer science), li ...
,
Node.js
Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript code o ...
,
ODBC
In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...
,
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
,
R2DBC) as well as the
MariaDB Enterprise Platform, including the
MariaDB Enterprise Server
MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Development is led by some of the ori ...
, optimized for production deployments. The MariaDB Enterprise Platform includes
MariaDB MaxScale,
an advanced database proxy, MariaDB ColumnStore, a columnar storage engine for interactive ad hoc analytics,
MariaDB Xpand, a distributed SQL storage engine for massive transactional scalability,
and MariaDB Enterprise Server, an enhanced, hardened and secured version of the community server.
MariaDB Corporation offers the MariaDB Enterprise Platform in the cloud under the name SkySQL, a database-as-a-service.
SkySQL
SkySQL general availability was announced on March 31, 2020. This database-as-a-service offering from MariaDB is a managed cloud service on
Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), offered by Google, is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail, Google Drive, and YouTube. Alongside ...
.
SkySQL is a hybrid database offering that includes a
column family {{Short description, A database project that organizes data in packed columns
A column family is a database object that contains columns of related data. It is a tuple (pair) that consists of a key–value pair, where the key is mapped to a value t ...
store,
object store,
distributed SQL
A distributed SQL database is a single relational database which replicates data across multiple servers. Distributed SQL databases are strongly consistent and most support consistency across racks, data centers, and wide area networks including c ...
database with both a transactional and analytical query engine. The combination allows developers to use a single database for multiple use cases and avoid a proliferation of databases.
The benefits of using this offering vs
Amazon RDS or
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...
Database's MariaDB services offerings are versioning (SkySQL ensures users are on the most recent product release) as well as having analytics and transactional support.
Investors in MariaDB Corporation Ab
MariaDB Corporation has been funded with a total of $123M combined in its A-series funding round in 2012, B-series in 2013-2016 and C-series in 2017–2022. It is undergoing a D-series round in 2022 aiming at an additional $104M in combination with its intention to become a listed company on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...
(NYSE).
Some of the initial A-series investors in MariaDB Corporation Ab were e.g. OpenOcean and ''Tesi'' (Finnish Industry Investment Ltd). The B-series round was led by
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
in 2013 which itself invested $20M. In 2017
Alibaba
Ali Baba (character), Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''.
Ali Baba or Alibaba may also refer to:
Films
* Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1902 film), ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' (1902 film), a F ...
led the C-series with a $27M investment into MariaDB in addition to a €25M investment by the
European Investment Bank
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions ...
.
See also
*
Comparison of database administration tools
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of available database administrator tools. Please see individual product articles for further information. This article is neither all-inclusive nor necessarily up to dat ...
*
Comparison of MySQL database engines
This is a comparison between notable database engines for the MySQL database management system (DBMS). A database engine (or "storage engine") is the underlying software component that a DBMS uses to create, read, update and delete (CRUD) data ...
*
Comparison of relational database management systems
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of relational database management systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are b ...
*
Multi-master replication
Multi-master replication is a method of database replication which allows data to be stored by a group of computers, and updated by any member of the group. All members are responsive to client data queries. The multi-master replication system i ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
MariaDB Foundation websiteMariaDB Corporation website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mariadb
2009 software
Client-server database management systems
Cross-platform software
Free database management systems
MySQL
Relational database management systems
Relational database management software for Linux
Software forks
Software using the GPL license