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MariaDB vs. MySQL: A Performance Comparison
Nerval's Lobster writes "MariaDB is a fork of the MySQL source code, split off in the wake of concerns over what Oracle would do with MySQL licensing. In addition to its role as a 'drop-in replacement' for MySQL, MariaDB also includes some new features that (some claim) make it better than MySQL. Jeff Cogswell compares MySQL and MariaDB and suggests (in his opinion) that there's 'more than enough reason to ditch MySQL and switch over to MariaDB and stay there.' Why? While he breaks down MariaDB's new features and thinks many of them aren't that fantastic, and while MariaDB's performance isn't that much better than that of MySQL ('MariaDB's performance appears a bit better on multi-core machines, but I strongly suspect that one could tweak MySQL to match'), the questions over Oracle and MySQL licensing give him pause. 'MariaDB shows every indication that it will be around for quite awhile, while you can't really say the same of Oracle's MySQL,' he writes. 'Free-and-open MySQL competes with Oracle's proprietary and extremely competitive tools. That alone is grounds for concern — will Oracle do something to impede MySQL's development?'"
The only link goes to another Slashdot page! Well done!
Today the list of incompatabilities is small and unimportant. I wonder if one will make a really useful difference that would encourage developers choose one or the other; then users would really need to choose. At the moment which you use doesn't really matter.
is percona not cool anymore?
THL phish sticks
I think concerns about Oracle's long-term plans for MySQL are valid to ask.
If it isn't making Larry money, what did he buy it for and what is he planning to do with it?
Oracle isn't exactly a customer friendly company (just ask anyone who had an older Solaris machine when Oracle bought Sun and got told they needed to buy a support contract to even access docs), so I've always wondered why they would buy a free database and continue to develop it and give it away.
If I was choosing based purely on open-ness, something which doesn't have the chance of Oracle coming along and closing it otherwise strong-arming people would be a plus.
I guess it legitimately is FUD, but sometimes, there's valid reasons to mistrust such entities. And having dealt with Oracle over the years, they themselves are a very strong reason to be suspicious.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They did. In short they stopped providing test cases for new features. Do not use MySQL. Period. Read more about in here.
Switch to Postgres. It'll be there for a long time.
Free-and-open MySQL competes with Oracle's proprietary and extremely competitive tools.
In what sense? Sure MySQL is free, but - and IANADBA - I would think the appropriate usage areas for MySQL and Oracle DBs overlap marginally, if at all. For example, my MythTV system uses MySQL on the back end, but I think using Oracle would be like killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer (no disrespect to sledgehammers). Conversely, Oracle is probably more appropriate for a large distributed / fail-over capable payroll/accounting systems.
MySQL is simple and small, while Oracle more complex and large - it might actually come with a kitchen sink.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Yeah, but Oracle has a lot of money, they do a lot of different things. They can afford to have a product or two that doesn't make them a whole lot of money. MariaDB on the other hand is run by a bunch of the guys who used work on MySQL when it was owned by Sun. They only have one way of making money. That is by selling support contracts. And if Oracle isn't making any money off selling support contracts, I have trouble seeing how MariaDB is going to make any money doing the same. MariaDB seems to me to be a higher risk than going with Oracle.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
We're only seeing this because the guy who sold MySQL to Oracle wants a second bite and is trying to discredit what he just sold them as hard as he possibly can so that people move back to his stuff.
I think concerns about Oracle's long-term plans for MySQL are valid to ask.
If it isn't making Larry money, what did he buy it for and what is he planning to do with it?
Oracle isn't exactly a customer friendly company (just ask anyone who had an older Solaris machine when Oracle bought Sun and got told they needed to buy a support contract to even access docs), so I've always wondered why they would buy a free database and continue to develop it and give it away.
If I was choosing based purely on open-ness, something which doesn't have the chance of Oracle coming along and closing it otherwise strong-arming people would be a plus.
I guess it legitimately is FUD, but sometimes, there's valid reasons to mistrust such entities. And having dealt with Oracle over the years, they themselves are a very strong reason to be suspicious.
Oracle maintain multiple open source initiatives. *I'm * not making any claim about wether these are maintained 'correctly or not, because the truth is that I am not in a position to state factually what the true state is.
But - people still use Virtual box. People still use Java. People are still using MySQL.
I'll pitch - even though I struggle to think its true - that if Oracle maintained them well, and if a true state exaists where the smaller MySQL may lead to an upgrade when things get large to Oracle DB - I can see why a vendor might say to itself that damaging our own product isn't productive. If they trust us implicitly doing a good job on MySQL they will believe the same basic premise on the day they need heavier iron and DB.
It is understandable commecially to look at things and remove or kill things that are done and have a fork in them. Its another to just vandalise in an unthinking stupid way a well grounded, popular and well regarded product.
The core question got asked at the end of the first post:
That alone is grounds for concern — will Oracle do something to impede MySQL's development? Citation and real evidence required.
The real world, true answer to that question is the real guide, other stuff and argument is fluffy..
We`re all equal
Yeah but you have oracle purposely trying to cripple MySQL so they can sell more oracle DB licenses.
The Monty AB guys need MariaDB to be a good product you want to buy support for.
what is he planning to do with it?
It's difficult to describe in words what "do with" means in this context.
But if you google on "Hentai", you'll find some pictures.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
the heck with that, oracle fucked up mysql the moment they bought sun...
(while some might argue that mysql was first fucked up by sun when they bought mysql..)
The longer you wait, the less chance there is of it still being a 'drop-in replacement'. Both sides are likely to make incompatible changes to the database format, and while that's OK when you're running a 1GB database that you can just dump out and restore, it's a problem when you're dealing with 60TB of data.
My son used to play a silly little match game that he picked up from pre-school when he was three years old. In it, he would take two toys -- cars, action figures, Lego blocks, staple removers, whatever -- hold them in his hands, and ask "Which one are you, X or Y?" After the other person (usually me) answered, he'd act out some sort of epic battle between the two toys in his hands, and then declare one or the other the victor. I always pointed out to him the pointlessness of the game. He didn't care.
Jeff Cogswell's reviews remind me of that game. They're pointless. He doesn't care. And my son grew out of it.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
My favorite part is that the article is titled "MariaDB vs. MySQL: A Performance Comparison", but since the performance is almost identical they spend most of the summary talking about ideological differences. I guess "MariaDB vs. MySQL: An Ideological Comparison" didn't have the same ring to it.
E pluribus unum
We're only seeing this because the guy who sold MySQL to Oracle wants a second bite and is trying to discredit what he just sold them as hard as he possibly can so that people move back to his stuff.
I think you may be right.
The creator of MySQL sold out to Sun and now he's trying to claim that his new DB is better, probably hoping he can sell out again and collect another big paycheck.
Where's all the posts proclaiming the infallibility and universal superiority of PorsgreSQL?
Oh, you're right. There you go then.
(Seriously, is there a stipulation in the licences that obligates you guys to reply to threads about mysql?)
Actually, no. It's in the design, the features, and the source code.
Oracle wants to use MySQL as a stepping stone for people to migrate them over to full Oracle DB. That's one of the reasons they bought the thing.
That's not really true. Prior to buying Sun, Oracle probably didn't give two shits about MySQL. Oracle wanted Sun, and Sun just happened to own MySQL, so it was part of the deal. Once Oracle had MySQL then they had to figure out what to do with it. The same thing with Java.
That's not really true. Prior to buying Sun, Oracle probably didn't give two shits about MySQL.
Well, they bought InnoDB well before Sun, so that's not entirely true.
Concerns about MariaDB's long-term plans are appropriate too. Monty has setup his new company with contributor copyright assignment such that he can sell it off again, the same way he did with MySQL. If you actually taste the FUD here, you should be migrating away from both of these uncertain projects, not deciding which of them to use.
MariaDB is taking the MySQL code via the GPL and then building on top of it with new code. Those changes are all having their copyright assigned to MariaDB, and in some cases the GPL will also require a public release. Eventually MariaDB is expected to have a non-trivial set of improvements, and the copyright ownership of all the new code will be to MariaDB. That allows selling the combination of GPL core plus some explicitly owned private code, the exact same way MySQL was sold to Sun.
This is the same scam that let Monty cash out once already, using the work of open source contributors who assigned their copyright to his original company. No reason he can't do it again, if people are gullible enough to fall for it twice.
I have done some tests some months ago, and I checked that MariaDB solves some problems that MySQL has. The performance is similar using simple queries, but when you write complex queries with subqueries, lots of joins and more, then MariaDB demonstrates the power of their code. I posted an entry in my wiki of the SaltOS project explaining how MariaDB helped to my project:
- http://www.saltos.net/portal/en/wiki/75/why-use-mariadb-instead-of-mysql.htm
Josep Sanz.
The SaltOS project.
How is Oracle crippling MySQL?
By just sitting on it, and not improving it.
Years ago, MySQL lacked many features that kept it from being a "real" database. Over the years, it has added transactions, stored procedures, triggers, etc. If that trend continued, why would anyone use Oracle? If Oracle just shut down MySQL, the momentum would shift to PostgreSQL or MariaDB. So by keeping MySQL alive, but stopping the improvement, Oracle is holding back free alternatives from competing with them.
There's been reason to switch from MySQL for 13 years: Postgres.
MySQL can't improve without breaking all the code that depends on it's fucked behavior.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You sold MySQL to uncle Larry for a lot of cash years ago and now we keep hearing about MariaDB vs MySQL.
After four years of MariaDB and four years of unsubstantiated FUD about Oracles intentions twoard MySQL you choose to make your case using a photo finish performance graph with no error bars.
It's more complicated this time. When Monty held copyright to all of MySQL, he was perfectly free to release it under whatever license he liked. Now, he's stuck with a central body of code that he can only access under GPL terms, and therefore any derived work has to be released under the GPL. He's limited in how he can enhance MariaDB without having to release his enhancements under the GPL.
Even if he can make an argument that some of his stuff isn't covered by the GPL, unless it runs as a separate app there's going to be legal uncertainty on its status, and lots of companies like to avoid buying legally dubious software and running a chunk of their business on it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes