
Ask HN: Why do people still use MySQL over MariaDB? - occam65
As far as I've come to understand it, MariaDB is a fork of MySQL from the original author, is better maintained, and faster. To take it even further, it practically works as a drop-in replacement of MySQL. Why do developers continue to start new projects using MySQL, and why aren't they busy migrating existing projects to Maria?<p>Is there a drawback to Maria that I'm not aware of?
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snowwrestler
The drawback to MariaDB is that it is an unknown. If someone has experienced
success with MySQL, then they know they can succeed in the future with MySQL.
It's one less thing to worry about.

To consider trying something new, they would need to expect a big improvement.
That's not really what MariaDB promises.

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unclebucknasty
I think it also comes down to the fact that many hosting providers (including
cloud providers like AWS) offer up MySQL-imaged machines, with back-up and
other processes around that.

So, on the dev front, I'm going to be inclined to stick with MySQL on my local
dev machine, knowing that I'm also deploying to MySQL in production. Even if
MariaDB is designed as a drop-in replacement, there can be differences between
the two that impact how code runs. This is especially true when one (MariaDB)
is updated more frequently.

I'm sure I can roll my own MariaDB server on an EC2 machine vs going with RDS,
then also migrate my dev machine to MariaDB as well. But, I've just not seen a
compelling reason to undertake that effort as of yet.

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voidlogic
Umm... MariaDB is slower?
[http://dimitrik.free.fr/blog/archives/2013/02/mysql-
performa...](http://dimitrik.free.fr/blog/archives/2013/02/mysql-performance-
mysql-56-vs-mysql-55-vs-mariadb-55.html)

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execat
People don't know any better.

Even today I have people asking me 'how to install OpenOffice on Fedora'. They
complain how the yum commands they found on a 5 year old guide do not work
anymore. Then they go and search for an OpenOffice RPM, which they do find,
and then complain how bad Linux system is.

Granted that office suites are generally end-user whereas databases are
developers, I can't see my college's system admin installing MariaDB the same
way I can't see my college teaching MongoDB.

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eudoxus
From what I can tell it just takes sometime for awareness and adoption to
occur. This is especially the case for people coming from the long trusted
MySQL. Basically it's not so much that there is something wrong with Maria,
just attachment to the firmiliar.

Just my 2¢

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LarryMade2
Hmm on my development machine MySQL is already there, when Maria DB becomes an
option I'll switch. Probably same with my Hosting.

If they are technically the same, the cost for me currently is the same ($0),
and the experience is the same, there is not immediate justification. Now when
Maria adds some nifty new feature (schema-less data storage, intelligent
joined results, or some other cool, thing that takes the bite out of massive
SQL queries) then it becomes compelling because it isn't same-old/same-old.

I'm sure the same goes for a lot of others; additionally I am comforted that
Maria exists and is being developed, and if my situation changes that will be
the direction I go.

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stevekemp
Familiarity, and the fact that it isn't packaged for all distributions. (For
example Debian have no packages.)

Sure it is probably "better", but running Debian's stable release the only
updates I wish to apply are security fixes from the security team.

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jacob019
I tried MariaDB a couple years ago, started having some terrible problems
where the server would hang and require a restart after which I had
corruption. MySQL 5.5 has been rock solid.

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b_chicago
It seems like the Wikimedia article has turned more people on to MariaDB - but
what about Percona? I'm ignorant about the differences. Does anyone have a
good 3-way comparison?

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johnny22
many distributions are switching to mariadb by default in the current or next
versions. Fedora, Arch, and OpenSUSE for example.

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cmccabe
It's for the same reason they use MySQL instead of Postgres.

Hey, as Scott Adams would say, "at least there's a reason"!
<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2000-02-13/>

