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MariaDB vs Percona Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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
Ranking in Open Source Databases
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (5th)
Percona Server
Ranking in Open Source Databases
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of MariaDB is 6.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Percona Server is 1.9%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MariaDB6.7%
Percona Server1.9%
Other91.4%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.
Umair Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source and free to use with a good community
I would love to see the flashback in Percona MySQL or even in Percona PostgreSQL. It's available in Oracle, the flashback. In Oracle, there's the utility of a flashback. It stores all the information in the tables for a few days. That way, if I accidentally delete my records from the table or I need to check the value of a column or row two days back, I can. If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal. I would love to see training be easier to find. I had some complications finding the training that Percona provides. It is not displayed on the website. For example, if I want to train myself via a Percona expert through virtual files or through recorded videos or something like that, it's really difficult to find any sort of course. You have to email them first, and they will ask you whether it is for yourself or it is for the corporate sector. The course content should just be readily available and not hidden.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is user-friendly."
"The product has been stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature of MariaDB is the replication mode."
"MariaDB has a straightforward initial setup with easy-to-understand documentation."
"I am editing."
"MariaDB is a user-friendly solution. Performance wise, it's better than SQL. With SQL, I would need to write a number of queries. In contrast, MariaDB is light."
"The product has good documentation and you can find many examples online."
"There is the need for a robust IDE for MongoDB. The existing PHP admin console doesn't meet the client's requirements effectively."
"We find the product mostly stable."
 

Cons

"A well-known issue for a lot of different users is associated with write-intensive applications."
"Master-master replication is something that needs to be simplified."
"MariaDB should provide HA and archive logging... I haven't had the opportunity to use the features provided by the solution since I don't know how to see them."
"The GUI could be improved a bit. The user interface needs to be improved."
"While MariaDB is a good relational database, it can be inflexible for complex use cases."
"The stability could always continue to be improved upon."
"Maria DB has to improve from a management perspective."
"The PL/SQL performance is slow if you have big batch jobs running overnight."
"If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is free of charge."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."
"We use the solution's free version."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price since there are some support costs involved, even though it isn't an open-source solution."
"It's an open-source solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
MariaDB is in the pricey range, especially for huge databases handling terabytes of data. The cost depends on the volume of data and different features enabled during configuration, such as backup ...
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
Complex queries in MariaDB where the query needs to parse thousands of lines or data values face some performance issues. For small and medium-size volume, it is pretty good. If it goes beyond cert...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Pricefalls Marketplace, Micpoint, Rent the Runway, Transmart, Wattpad, Singular Group, Invoca, 3E
Find out what your peers are saying about MariaDB vs. Percona Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,688 professionals have used our research since 2012.