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MariaDB on CentOS vs MySQL on Ubuntu comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

MariaDB on CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MySQL on Ubuntu
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
28th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

YK
Senior Software Developer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable relational database has handled heavy payment traffic and has improved query speed
The best features MariaDB on CentOS offers is that it is a default database, so we can easily install it. It was a seamless installation out of the box. The other thing which we need and which MariaDB provides is the speed. For pooling and handling multiple connections on a single instance, MySQL and some other services provide their enterprise edition that we need to pay for. However, for MariaDB on CentOS, it is freely available and built-in. With respect to that, it is all seamless. We do not need to pay for anything, and we are utilizing the best connection pooling capability. We also got some performance speeds over our queries. It is also very much compatible. It is all the same as MySQL. It fully supports MySQL. It is already compatible with our previous projects, and if we introduce some new kind of thing, it can handle everything. MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted our organization because we were on a different relational database and that was not holding that much connection and that much speed. After implementing MariaDB, it gives us so much ease to handle those issues. It has things inside it so we do not even need to change the configuration; it handles it with very ease. The replication thing is very good, and we have fewer read replicas because of the connection handling. The reader latency is very less. We do not get any idea that the data we are fetching from a master to a slave instance is different because the reader latency is very less. The primary thing that we got from MariaDB on CentOS is the connection handling capability. The connection was dropping, so that is totally resolved. We did not even find any single instance of this type of case after implementing MariaDB. The second thing is the speed. Sometimes it performs faster. When we do EXPLAIN and everything, it shows us what indexing it has been using, and they are much more efficient than the other relational database. It handles everything in a good way. It is a balanced configuration. By default, it provides a balanced configuration, so we do not need to look into that side. The faster query speed and the better replication feature that is open source, and we also have community support for that. The security updates are very fast. It also supports storage engines for different types of data we can simply use. One of the things that is not ideal is that the version which is default is sometimes older than the very latest.
NP
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Database platform has supported secure ecommerce growth but still needs simpler scaling and monitoring
MySQL on Ubuntu can be improved in a couple of things in my mind. I can consider performance-wise, scalability-wise, reliability, availability, security, and operational simplicity. Right now it is good enough for ourselves or our organization. But if it is considered from a scalability perspective, currently, MySQL on Ubuntu scales fairly well. Write scaling is hard and manual sharding is required. In that case, what we can improve is native sharding support, better distributed write handling, and easier multi-primary setups. For performance optimization, I can say currently the limitation is the required expert tuning. The default configuration is conservative. What we need to do in that is auto-tuning based on the hardware, better index recommendations, and smarter query optimization. Another point is high availability. Currently, what happens is that replication setup is complex. If you make the setup but if you want to replicate it, it will be complex. What we have to do is build in automatic failover, easier cluster setup, and faster recovery time. The fourth thing is security enhancements. Currently, whatever security is set up is manual. Misconfiguration risk is there. What we can improve in that is secure-by-default configuration and mandatory SSL in production because SSL is very important nowadays. This thing we can improve. Stronger password policy by default. For the security perspective, we can provide a stronger password policy by default. For recovery and backup simplicity, I can say that currently, we need scripting for the backups and recovery testing is a manual thing. What we can do here is built-in backup scheduler. We can run one scheduler and every day it will take the backups. If we can have it, it will be great. One-click restore and automated recovery validation. Those things we can improve. Another thing is observability and monitoring. Currently, what happens is limited built-in visibility and external tools required for that. What we can do here is provide native performance dashboard, query heat maps, and bottleneck detection. Those things we can improve. Another thing I can consider is at the Ubuntu level. Because if you consider, the OS and DB configuration is disconnected and kernel tuning is also manual. What we can improve in that is DB-aware kernel tuning, better file system defaults for the DB workloads, and pre-tuned DB server profiles. I can say cloud-native enhancements. Right now we are working on a traditional architecture and manual cloud optimization. It would be better to have Kubernetes native auto-scaling and storage-aware tuning. Those can improve my area for that. Another thing is developer experience. Debugging a query is hard. Currently, if we are running on Ubuntu and code something, there are no other tools we are using. Debugging is very hard. Also, error guidance is limited. We can say that a clearer error message, query rewrite suggestions, and schema change safety checks by default. Those kinds of improvements we can do. I can say I mostly covered the improvements needed for MySQL on Ubuntu, but one thing I can say is that there is also some limitation on the governance and compliance base. Auditing needs configuration. Some configuration we need to read. Compliance reporting also is manual right now. We can improve that with built-in audit templates, compliance-ready modes we can provide, and easier data masking we can do. Those things we can add also.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted my organization by providing more features compared to Oracle MySQL, particularly in terms of performance, advantages, and implemented features, leading to migrations from Oracle MySQL to MariaDB on CentOS."
"MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted our organization in several ways."
"MariaDB on CentOS is faster than Oracle."
"I appreciate MySQL on Ubuntu for its relational tables which are faster to read, contributing to the performance in simple applications."
"The primary aspect of MySQL on Ubuntu that I appreciate is that it is extremely reliable among the RDBMS that I have used, and another important quality is that it extends with volume very well as most RDBMS don't scale very well, but this one scales very well and has been very reliable and highly available."
"I have saved a significant amount of time because it's faster to create features with machine learning since it's very fast, and so we get the result in a few seconds."
"MySQL on Ubuntu is a great platform to deploy your data as it integrates well with services for ETL, analytics, or even machine learning platforms, and we have not encountered a single downtime while achieving high scalability, availability, and strong data security within our VPC."
"MySQL on Ubuntu is the base for most of our applications that are based on Linux, so it is wonderful."
"MySQL on Ubuntu offers very good performance, it is secure, and it is easy to use."
"MySQL on Ubuntu has positively impacted my organization by enabling me to use a database that is very easy to use, quick to set up, and inexpensive; this database provides business value because every web application nowadays needs some type of database, so for those that require SQL databases, MySQL on Ubuntu is a great way to do it."
"MySQL on Ubuntu is very simple, easy, and quick to use for people with database expertise."
 

Cons

"Many functionalities are not available in MariaDB on CentOS, so those aspects needed to be rewritten, particularly Oracle proprietary features."
"One of the things that is not ideal is that the version which is default is sometimes older than the very latest."
"I think MariaDB on CentOS needs improvements in some memory-level implementations within the operating system, as I have noticed issues related to memory orientation, such as out-of-memory problems."
"I cannot answer regarding improvements. As I said, I am not watching, and I don't know what is in between the application and the database."
"I would say that MySQL on Ubuntu can be improved particularly in its scaling capabilities."
"Sometimes, if the indexing is not done very well, I have noticed slowness, but largely, it has performed pretty well."
"Currently, what happens is that replication setup is complex; if you make the setup but if you want to replicate it, it will be complex."
"MySQL on Ubuntu can be improved because it has limited analytics query capabilities rather than other competitors."
"Despite some issues such as security concerns when changing passwords which compromised the database, it remains a very good database engine."
"Integration is always important regarding operating systems and these types of products, so being able to integrate and export or import from JSON structures is very critical."
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Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for MariaDB on CentOS?
My main use case for MariaDB on CentOS in my last organization was in the telecom domain, where clients mainly focused on the database called MariaDB, for which we set up on-premises servers runnin...
What advice do you have for others considering MariaDB on CentOS?
I can share that after switching to MariaDB on CentOS, we saw great advantages in terms of high availability performance, particularly compared to other operating systems such as Linux and Unix pla...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MySQL on Ubuntu?
My experience with the pricing is that we are using free.
What needs improvement with MySQL on Ubuntu?
Integration is always important regarding operating systems and these types of products, so being able to integrate and export or import from JSON structures is very critical. Sometimes that is a l...
What is your primary use case for MySQL on Ubuntu?
I used MySQL on Ubuntu for temporary storage of financial data utilized for analysis of creditworthiness as the main use case, as I had some streaming services that pulled in data from Equifax.
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about MariaDB on CentOS vs. MySQL on Ubuntu and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.