Exploring the differences between MariaDB and MySQL

Database Face-Off

Article from ADMIN 04/2011

By Daniel Bartholomew

MariaDB is a cousin of MySQL – but not an identical twin

The dominance of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) stack of technologies for websites has had a lot to do with MySQL's position as a popular open source database. This preeminent position is probably why so many people were worried when Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL (the company behind MySQL) and then when Oracle purchased Sun. One group of (mostly) former MySQL employees, led and funded by MySQL co-founder Michael "Monty" Widenius, was concerned enough to leave Sun/Oracle, start a new company (Monty Program), and create a branch of MySQL called MariaDB.

MariaDB

The goal for MariaDB is to be a drop-in replacement for MySQL – with more features and better performance.

MariaDB is based on the corresponding version of MySQL, if one exists. For example, MariaDB 5.1.53 is based on MySQL 5.1.53, with some added bug fixes, additional storage engines, new features, and performance improvements. Versions of MariaDB that do not have an equivalently numbered version of MySQL (e.g., MariaDB 5.2.4) contain major new features the developers felt warranted a new version number. When comparing the two here, I'll focus on the additional features of MariaDB.

Differences and Features

As I write, the current stable releases for each database are MySQL 5.5.8 and MariaDB 5.2.4. MariaDB releases tend to lag behind equivalent versions of MySQL. The lag can be as short as a couple weeks or as long as two or three months, but it allows the MariaDB developers to merge the new MySQL code into the MariaDB source trees properly and to test for performance regressions or new bugs in both the MySQL code and the new MariaDB code.

At first glance, not much seems to have changed. The server is still mysqld, the command-line client is still mysql, the main configuration file is still

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