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MariaDB or MySQL, that is the question

Many customers come to us and ask us whether to use MariaDB or MySQL. The answer is not so simple. FromDual is a neutral and vendor independent MariaDB/MySQL consulting company. So we should not have (in the meaning of neutral) a clear preference. For us internally we have chosen our strategy according to some clearly defined criteria. But what we have chosen for us is not necessarily the right choice for you.

So what we want to show you here is a tool which helps you to choose the right strategy for your own company or situation. In this case a tool to use is the decision matrix [ 1 ]. We tried to build such a decision matrix for your choice between MariaDB and MySQL. You can fill in your ratings into the table and decide yourself:

CriteriaK.O.*Factor*****MySQL**MariaDB**
Query Cache***1......
Ease of use1......
Security1......
Major Release series stability1......
Feature 1 implementation1......
Feature 2 implementation1......
Feature 3 implementation1......
Storage Engines (MyISAM, ColumnStore, Spider)1......
Distribution support1......
Supplier repository1......
Included in O/S Support1......
Enterprise Subscription type****1......
Enterprise Subscription pricing1......
Enterprise Subscription quality1......
Quality Assurance of software vendor1......
Application software vendor support1......
Uniform software stack1......
Different supplier strategy1......
Software development1......
License (GPL, proprietary)1......
Mainstream1......
Cluster integration1......
Trust in software vendor1......
One vendor support1......
Migration to this solution1......
Integration into site license1......
Long term trust into vendor1......
Total--------=sum(d2:d27)=sum(e2:e27)

*  A K.O. criteria means that the solution or product is out of the game if it does not meet this criteria at all. For example if you need hard real time behaviour for the application and one of the chosen solutions / products does not meet this requirement this solution / product is out of the game. Side note: Neither MariaDB nor MySQL satisfy hard real time requirements!

**  In this column you can rate the criteria for example from 0..4. 0 means does absolutely not meet criteria, 1 to 4 means a little to perfect.

***  Does NOT exist any more in MySQL 8.

****  MariaDB per instance (mysqld), MySQL per physical machine (not VM!)

*****  With the Factor you can weight a Criteria. For example if QA is important for you, you can give this criteria a higher weight.

If you find/have some more criteria which should be listed in the matrix please let us know!

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