
MySQL vs. MariaDB: Reality Check - tpetry
https://www.percona.com/blog/2017/11/02/mysql-vs-mariadb-reality-check/
======
zzzeek
who says MariaDB doesn't work with ProxySQL?

Also, this statement is total BS:

"The risk of moving to MariaDB Server if you aren’t using newer MySQL features
may be minimal, but the risk of moving out of MariaDB Server to MySQL is very
prevalent."

Here is the correct statement:

"The risk of moving to MariaDB Server if you aren’t using newer MySQL features
may be minimal, and the risk of moving to MySQL server if you aren't using
newer MariaDB features is also minimal."

I switch between multiple versions of MySQL and MariaDB all day long. If you
aren't using specific things like MySQL's JSON type or NDB storage engine or
expecting CHECK constraints to enforce on MySQL (oddly omitted from this
feature comparison!), there is nothing different at all from a developer point
of view, beyond the default values of flags which honestly change more between
MySQL releases than anything else.

As the maintainer of SQLAlchemy I think MySQL more often makes backwards-
incompatible changes more often than MariaDB, such as just from 5.7.19 to
5.7.20 they decided to change the name of "@tx_isolation" to
"@transaction_isolation" (and no, "@transaction_isolation" is not in 5.7.19,
they just changed the name on a point release) and start emitting a prominent,
scary warning when you use @tx_isolation that is breaking people's CI builds -
on a _point release_.

The reason a vendor like Percona or a linux distro chooses to favor MySQL or
MariaDB is mostly about that vendor's relationship with Oracle (or lack
thereof) more than anything else. I'm stuck using both all the time but the
MariaDB community certainly feels more accessible than trying to get through
to people working at Oracle.

~~~
user5994461
Are you sure that you actually installed mysql? A _apt-get install mysql_
would install mariadb.

It could be pretty difficult to get and install mysql. I recall times where
you needed to go to the Oracle website and check some EULA manually before you
could get a temporary download link. Quite a stand against automation.

~~~
matthewowen
Your question is whether the person who maintains SQLAlchemy knows how to
install mysql?

~~~
user5994461
The forking war between mariadb and mysql does not mind who you are. It
affects everyone.

~~~
praneshp
Your parent's point is that zzzeek' is highly likely to understand the
difference. He is the maintainer of
[https://www.sqlalchemy.org/](https://www.sqlalchemy.org/)

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hennsen
Oh, and we „accidentally“ forgot to mention in the introduction paragraph,
that MariaDB is the „fork“ of the people who actually invented MySQL and made
all that, including our own business, possible in the first place. A fork
that‘s created because Oracle gives a shit about really open community
development but pushes their secrecy and self centered view and processes into
the open source world wherever they can for their own financial gain and
nothing else.

Just saying, cause to somebody not aware of history it might sound like there
are some crazy open source folks making their own thing at mariadb. (And im
only referring to the introduction, it might be better explained somewhere
else in the text, but i didn’t see that browsing through)

------
damm
Most of the statements in here are biased by Percona's relationship with
MySQL.

I mean you could complain that it's a fork; but who are you to bitch it's free
software. If you paid for MySQL enterprise and they forked to something else
and your license is worthless then you have a case.

So it's not MySQL 8.0 and it doesn't have the same features as MySQL; it's
obvious that the developers of MariaDB don't have the same mindset (and
possibly same user audience) as MySQL does.

Lastly most people use MySQL because they don't know better. You read a book
about LAMP and it tells you to install MySQL; you really didn't make a choice.
Lots of applications depend on MySQL and don't work on $othersql so you get
forced dependencies.

You could say MySQL used their clout to try and force their world vision of
dominance. This wouldn't be far from the truth.

------
cwyers
I see several comments here that accuse Percona of bias against Maria for
commercial reasons. If you look at Percona's services:

[https://www.percona.com/services/support/support-tiers-
mysql...](https://www.percona.com/services/support/support-tiers-mysql-
mariadb)

They will happily take your money to support MariaDB. Percona Toolkit and
Percona XtraBackup both support MariaDB.

I have no dog in this fight -- I've left MySQL behind years ago and don't
really miss it. I've hired Percona to help with some urgent DB problems I
couldn't solve on my own and I was pleased with their work, but I have no
stake in standing up for them. But the idea that they have some vested
interest in pushing for MySQL over MariaDB doesn't seem born out by what
they're selling.

~~~
damm
Percona will take your money and support just about anything. They have an
excellent set of DBA's for consulting with customers

That said their bias is clear. I'm sure they are not happy that the innodb
plugin has the xtradb patches.

Hard to sell your product when others have brought it into their product I
guess

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jpatokal
This is a blog post on the official Percona blog by its "Chief Evangelist",
and quite far from a neutral evaluation.

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Ologn
> Linux distributions have chosen MariaDB Server... It is the “default” MySQL
> in many Linux distributions (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE and
> Debian). However, Ubuntu...

I think this is a key point. The major Linux distros use mariadb. Ubuntu does
not by default, but "apt-get install mariadb-server" will get it for you. Plus
the creator of MySQL and much of the original MySQL team actively develops
MariaDB.

------
beefsack
There's no way you can trust this to be unbiased, and the same can be said
about the MariaDB comment they're responding to but don't directly reference
(I've been unable to find it.)

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Indeed, parts of this come across as more of a knee-jerk rant than anything.

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Yaa101
My reality check was called Postgres some years ago...

~~~
mrweasel
I pretty much agree, except for the cases where you need multi-master
databases. In those cases MySQL/MariaDB is pretty much your only option,
unless you can afford huge license fees.

------
ourmandave
Last sentence...

 _We look forward to supporting your deployments of MySQL or MariaDB Server,
whichever option is right for you! If you need assistance on migrations
between servers, or further information, don’t hesitate to contact your
friendly Percona sales associate._

~~~
abiox
have you worked with percona before?

------
_ix
OpenStack has been mentioned here a few times which caught my eye.

Our DBA (is that still a thing most places?) has requested that we prefer
Percona over MariaDB in future infrastructure roll outs. I'm currently
wrestling with Percona and it seems to be a confusing mess to me. Admittedly,
I'm only a casual database consumer, but I've never had problems like this
with postgres

    
    
      ERROR! mysql pid file /run/mysqld/mysql.pid /var/run/mariadb/mariadb.pid empty or not readable
    

Installation has been a pain with conflicting/incompatible versions of galera.
I just want a _simple_ ha database; is that so much to ask for?

~~~
fideloper
`I just want a simple ha database; is that so much to ask for?`

Yep! HA (and related, CAP) necessarily comes with trade offs. Databases being
our store where we expect ACID compliance adds an extra layer of needs that
makes multi-master (and similar concepts) "hard AF".

------
r1ch
I've been growing increasingly concerned by MariaDB bugs. The latest Debian
versions from mariadb.org had annoying libmysqlclient symbol conflicts with
Debian packages and it still isn't fixed in the latest stable release.

I also recently found out that MariaDB still ships the query cache built in
(which is now completely removed from MySQL) and even with query_cache_type =
off, it somehow still enabled itself and is in a broken state that was causing
simple SELECT statements to return empty results.

This article is making me consider the switch to Percona Server quite
seriously.

------
mathnode
The tire-fire of a relationship between MySQL vendors, is still very
entertaining.

I personally blame the use of GPL licensing. I hate to be yet another
commentor that drops the “P”-word, so I will drop the “F”-word instead; the
Freebsd licensing allows for a kind of community growth, collaboration and
mind share the likes of which the MySQL forks could only dream of.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
I wasn't aware the client connectors (like MySQL-python) I'm using with
MariaDB everyday are not "official". I'm just using them as usual.

------
hugs
What do people here think of the (BSL) Business Source License? The MariaDB
folks are using it for their MaxScale product. The BSL is intended to be a
sustainable way to pay for open source software development. (BSL's tl;dr is
that it's a proprietary license that reverts to an open source license after a
period of time.)

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jrs95
The JSON comparison seems a bit disenginous considering Maria has JSON
specific functions but just not a JSON type

Edit: nevermind, I was skimming and read that totally wrong, they're pretty
explicit about that

~~~
viraptor
That's literally what it says, doesn't it? "No JSON Data Type, 26 functions"

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tkyjonathan
Lots of love for MariaDB in the comments here..

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Tell me about it. It's almost as if it's a good product that works well for
most people (myself included).

~~~
tkyjonathan
Not knocking the DB. I use it myself. Just noticing a trend.

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beiller
I have not read the article but let met give a reality check. Innovation has
stopped around Mysql 5.0 which supported binary logs and multi master
replication. What features have actually been developed after this version
that is useful? Json?

~~~
VintageCool
Multithreaded replication in 5.6, row based replication in 5.1, performance
schema

