{"slug": "mariadb", "name": "MariaDB", "category": "databases", "category_name": "Databases", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 8, "warners": 0, "score": 3.96, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2025-12-23", "latest": "2026-09-02", "why": "there's literally zero risk of the MariaDB server suddenly going closed-source", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 4, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "there's literally zero risk of the MariaDB server suddenly going closed-source", "icon": true, "domain": "mariadb.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://mariadb.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["MariaDB"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 792621488, "item_id": 49538843, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49538843", "by": "shyim", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "as we use MariaDB we can't use PGLite", "excerpt": "I wanted to build a Browser Playground for our PHP application and as we use MariaDB we can't use PGLite. As looking around solutions I found that MariaDB has embedded support, therefore gave it an try to port it in a similar way to PGLite https://mariadb.com/docs/server/clients-and-utilities/administrative-tools/mariadb-embedded", "context": "", "use_case": "browser playground for PHP app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running MariaDB in the Browser with WebAssembly"}, {"id": 783240208, "item_id": 48952513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48952513", "by": "evanelias", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there's literally zero risk of the MariaDB server suddenly going closed-source", "excerpt": "Some of the cited reasons for moving off MariaDB [1] seem misguided, in my opinion. Especially the part about \"K1 are very enterprise-focused, so the database is likely to focus its work on features that are not relevant to us. There's increased risk they drop the free/open source version we use\" K1 acquired the commercial entity behind MariaDB Enterprise, but that's separate from the non-profit MariaDB Foundation. A", "context": "", "use_case": "database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lobste.rs is now running on SQLite"}, {"id": 744848417, "item_id": 46553026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553026", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-01-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just fucking use PostgreSQL, or even MariaDB.", "excerpt": "If I was better versed in writing and happened to be someone relevant, at the very least I\u2019d support the viewpoint that open source is good for preventing takeovers and software dependencies turning hostile (e.g. Valkey and OpenSearch at least existing) and preventing being held financially hostage in times of uncertainty (e.g. many Linux server side distros are free and FOSS relational DBs won\u2019t bankrupt you). Yet p", "context": "", "use_case": "database", "switched_from": "", "story": "European Commission issues call for evidence on open source"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "tempestn", "context": "runs a vehicle listings product", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907718", "date": "2026-02-05"}, {"by": "francislavoie", "context": "CI acceptance tests with fixture resets", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46365259", "date": "2025-12-23"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["database", "browser playground for php app", "vps offer search database", "lobsters database", "search", "production database"], "compared": [{"slug": "postgresql", "name": "PostgreSQL", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "elasticsearch", "name": "Elasticsearch", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "sqlite", "name": "SQLite", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899847", "title": "Lobste.rs is now running on SQLite", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49538842", "title": "Running MariaDB in the Browser with WebAssembly", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175324", "title": "Show HN: A search engine for VPS servers with an automatic crawler pipeline", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47616250", "title": "Ask HN: What is your dev set up like?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46905555", "title": "It's 2026, Just Use Postgres", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550912", "title": "European Commission issues call for evidence on open source", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"compare": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 792621488, "item_id": 49538843, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49538843", "by": "shyim", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "as we use MariaDB we can't use PGLite", "excerpt": "I wanted to build a Browser Playground for our PHP application and as we use MariaDB we can't use PGLite. As looking around solutions I found that MariaDB has embedded support, therefore gave it an try to port it in a similar way to PGLite https://mariadb.com/docs/server/clients-and-utilities/administrative-tools/mariadb-embedded", "context": "", "use_case": "browser playground for PHP app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running MariaDB in the Browser with WebAssembly"}, {"id": 786818464, "item_id": 49176154, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176154", "by": "davidebaldini", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "in comparison tests, MariaDB would consume half of its query time on sorting", "excerpt": "This pet project of mine is a web search engine for discovering virtual private server (VPS) offers starting from a search query that the user can incrementally specialize to iteratively add constraints and narrow the corpus of results. Thru the past years I added 120 service providers to the data acquisition pipeline, which is run every 24 hours to refresh the entirety of the corpus and to index the VPS services in ", "context": "built a VPS search engine", "use_case": "VPS offer search database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: A search engine for VPS servers with an automatic crawler pipeline"}, {"id": 783240208, "item_id": 48952513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48952513", "by": "evanelias", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there's literally zero risk of the MariaDB server suddenly going closed-source", "excerpt": "Some of the cited reasons for moving off MariaDB [1] seem misguided, in my opinion. Especially the part about \"K1 are very enterprise-focused, so the database is likely to focus its work on features that are not relevant to us. There's increased risk they drop the free/open source version we use\" K1 acquired the commercial entity behind MariaDB Enterprise, but that's separate from the non-profit MariaDB Foundation. A", "context": "", "use_case": "database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lobste.rs is now running on SQLite"}, {"id": 783239104, "item_id": 48952444, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48952444", "by": "homebrewer", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "pages sometimes render for several seconds which I've never seen under MariaDB. Used to be instantaneous, always.", "excerpt": "It's been fairly unstable recently, pages sometimes render for several seconds which I've never seen under MariaDB. Used to be instantaneous, always. Sometimes (maybe 5% or less) the request won't render at all, and you get a browser error page. Today they ran into this bug, lost a bunch of voting data, and went into read-only mode for several hours: https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/57128 I wonder how much of this", "context": "", "use_case": "Lobsters database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lobste.rs is now running on SQLite"}, {"id": 761988435, "item_id": 47624277, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624277", "by": "gethly", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "HeidiSQL and MariaDB for SQL.", "excerpt": "Stuck with GoLand. I hate the company, use maybe 5% of the features, but there is nothing better out there. FileZilla for FTP. HeidiSQL and MariaDB for SQL. 1Remote for multi-session SSH. KeePass for passwords, keys, configuration files or any sensitive data. Occasionally I use Notepad++, VS Codium or Zed when I need to.", "context": "", "use_case": "database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your dev set up like?"}, {"id": 750523490, "item_id": 46907718, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907718", "by": "tempestn", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "compared to the MariaDB-based search we'd been using previously", "excerpt": "It really depends on your use case, doesn't it? I'd say, just use Postgres... until you have a reason not to. We used finally switched to Elasticsearch to power user search queries of our vehicle listings a few years ago, and found its speed, capabilities, and simplicity all significant improvements compared to the MariaDB-based search we'd been using previously. (Postgres's search features are likely better than Mar", "context": "runs a vehicle listings product", "use_case": "search", "switched_from": "", "story": "It's 2026, Just Use Postgres"}, {"id": 744848417, "item_id": 46553026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553026", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-01-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just fucking use PostgreSQL, or even MariaDB.", "excerpt": "If I was better versed in writing and happened to be someone relevant, at the very least I\u2019d support the viewpoint that open source is good for preventing takeovers and software dependencies turning hostile (e.g. Valkey and OpenSearch at least existing) and preventing being held financially hostage in times of uncertainty (e.g. many Linux server side distros are free and FOSS relational DBs won\u2019t bankrupt you). Yet p", "context": "", "use_case": "database", "switched_from": "", "story": "European Commission issues call for evidence on open source"}, {"id": 741844144, "item_id": 46365259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46365259", "by": "francislavoie", "date": "2025-12-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I need to be using MariaDB since it's what we use in production", "excerpt": "Is anyone aware of something like this for MariaDB? Something we've been trying to solve for a long time is having instant DB resets between acceptance tests (in CI or locally) back to our known fixture state, but right now it takes decently long (like half a second to a couple seconds, I haven't benchmarked it in a while) and that's by far the slowest thing in our tests. I just want fast snapshotted resets/rewinds t", "context": "CI acceptance tests with fixture resets", "use_case": "production database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Instant database clones with PostgreSQL 18"}]}