MariaDB vs PostgreSQL comparison

MariaDB and PostgreSQL are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. MariaDB is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.3, while PostgreSQL is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7. MariaDB holds a 5.6% mindshare in OSD, compared to PostgreSQL’s 13.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of MariaDB users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of PostgreSQL users who would recommend it.

MariaDB

Read 62 MariaDB reviews

6,721 Views
3,629 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

PostgreSQL

Read 128 PostgreSQL reviews

12,746 Views
10,197 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

MariaDB

PostgreSQL

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

PostgreSQL and MariaDB compete in the open-source database category. PostgreSQL has an upper hand due to its advanced features and data integrity.

Features: PostgreSQL offers features like (geo)spatial support, JSONB aggregators, and ACID compliance, making it suitable for complex environments. Its rich extension ecosystem, including PostGIS, and mature replication options are notable. MariaDB is known for its speed and ease of management, leveraging its origins in MySQL to offer compatibility and performance for less feature-demanding applications.

Room for Improvement: PostgreSQL needs better user-friendly tools, improved query profiling, and enhanced multi-master replication. It could also reduce complexity in installation and maintenance. MariaDB could enhance support for complex queries, improve stability with scaling operations, and offer better documentation for new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both PostgreSQL and MariaDB are adaptable across hybrid, private, and public clouds. PostgreSQL is highly favored for strong community support, although lacking formal customer service for its open-source version. Commercial support is available through third-party providers for both. MariaDB's deployment is straightforward but has less comprehensive technical documentation.

Pricing and ROI: Both PostgreSQL and MariaDB are cost-effective open-source solutions with no licensing fees. PostgreSQL is praised for its extensive features at no cost, leading to high ROI for complex projects. MariaDB also provides an affordable solution, with most relying on the free community edition, offering rapid ROI with minimal initial investment in software licensing.

To learn more, read our detailed MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

June 2026

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Helped 906,418 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

6.6

MariaDB offers cost savings, secure AI data handling, SQL integration, and community-driven features, benefiting up to 90% of users.

Sentiment score

6.7

PostgreSQL offers cost savings and rapid ROI with free open-source capabilities, ideal for startups and growing enterprises.

Since it handles vector storage and similarity searches natively alongside your relational data, I can seamlessly combine precise SQL filters with vector queries, which guarantees that the data retrieved for my AI application is always up-to-date and consistent.

reviewer2816820

Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.2

MariaDB offers enterprise support but most users rely on clear documentation and community assistance to resolve issues.

Sentiment score

6.7

PostgreSQL support is strong with community forums, detailed documentation, and high-rated resources, offering both free and paid options.

They came and tuned our queries with one-to-one assistance.

Prabhat-Ranjan

Architect at LTIMindtree

Compared to MongoDB, there are some platform deficiencies, but the support team shouldn't bear that burden.

Anand Bandi

Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

If PostgreSQL is hosted on cloud services such as Amazon RDS or Google Cloud SQL, the support is handled by the cloud provider, who provides automated backups, monitoring, infrastructure management, and technical support tickets.

AyushVerma

Software Engineer at GSS Academy, Noida

Overall, we have a very small customer service team and a good engineering team with no overburden or bandwidth issues.

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

For customizations and extensions, the community is very active and useful.

Ram Maruboina

Software Engineer – Rust Systems & AI Evaluation at Turing

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.8

MariaDB is scalable, excelling in small to medium setups but needing extra tools and configuration for larger environments.

Sentiment score

7.4

PostgreSQL is highly scalable, handling large on-premise or cloud deployments effectively, supporting high transactions and growing user demands.

A specific challenge I have faced is troubleshooting performance degradation during heavy write transaction tables.

reviewer2816820

Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

Now, we are doing the same level of transactions in PostgreSQL, around 100,000 transactions, and we are getting good throughput with no latency.

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

MariaDB is stable and reliable, though specific configurations like clustering may pose occasional stability issues.

Sentiment score

8.0

PostgreSQL is praised for its stability and reliability, outperforming MySQL, with issues mainly from misconfiguration, not intrinsic faults.

We haven't found issues with the stability of MariaDB.

Anand Bandi

Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

I have never seen any performance issue in PostgreSQL.

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Room For Improvement

MariaDB enhances integration and UI but needs improved stability, replication, views, BI tool integration, and complex query performance.

PostgreSQL users seek improvements in interface, performance, scalability, integration, documentation, and support for large-scale real-time applications.

MariaDB is scalable and easy to scale.

Anand Bandi

Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd

Oracle is very advanced compared to MariaDB, and those advanced features are not available in MariaDB.

Prabhat-Ranjan

Architect at LTIMindtree

The key area where MariaDB could be improved is its native GUI tooling; while the command-line interface works perfectly fine, the built-in visual tools for administration, management, and query design feel outdated compared to some competitors.

reviewer2816820

Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

PostgreSQL remains a strong choice for enterprise applications due to its stability, extensibility, and SQL standards compliance.

Ram Maruboina

Software Engineer – Rust Systems & AI Evaluation at Turing

Query optimization improves slow queries by using proper indexes, avoiding unnecessary joins, and using EXPLAIN ANALYZE to inspect query plans.

AyushVerma

Software Engineer at GSS Academy, Noida

If I need to increase the dimension to 3,000 or 5,000, that option should be available.

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Setup Cost

MariaDB is a cost-effective, open-source database solution offering a free Community Edition and affordable enterprise alternatives to Oracle.

PostgreSQL offers cost-effective scalability and flexibility with zero licensing fees, though setup and support may incur additional costs.

MariaDB is in the pricey range, especially for huge databases handling terabytes of data.

Anand Bandi

Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

Even with doing 100,000 transactions right now within PostgreSQL, we are happy with PostgreSQL and not seeing that it is expensive or going out of budget.

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

The managed PostgreSQL itself is open source with no license fees.

Ram Maruboina

Software Engineer – Rust Systems & AI Evaluation at Turing

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Valuable Features

MariaDB is reliable and scalable, offering open-source benefits, SQL compliance, excellent performance, and broad community support for various needs.

PostgreSQL excels in spatial support, high availability, JSONB handling, integration, scalability, and community-driven advanced features for diverse applications.

Encryption is available in MariaDB, so we are secure for transmitting data without concern about moving over networks.

Prabhat-Ranjan

Architect at LTIMindtree

Being able to store unstructured JSON directly into a column while still using standard SQL functions such as JSON_EXTRACT to query specific keys has saved me from having to constantly alter our database schemas.

reviewer2816820

Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

Configuration, setup, and schema design are good features in MariaDB.

Anand Bandi

Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the MariaDB report

PostgreSQL improves reliability, performance, and scalability in production. Since it is ACID compliant, it ensures that database transactions are safe and consistent, preventing partial data updates, maintaining data integrity, and allowing multiple users to read or write data simultaneously using MVCC.

AyushVerma

Software Engineer at GSS Academy, Noida

The best feature is performance, because of which I decided on PostgreSQL.

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

Its robustness and reliability are incredible and stable, which is crucial for critical data, especially with AI model outputs.

Ram Maruboina

Software Engineer – Rust Systems & AI Evaluation at Turing

For more quotes and insights, download the PostgreSQL report

Categories and Ranking

MariaDB

Ranking in Open Source Databases

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (9th)

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Open Source Databases

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

128

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of MariaDB is 5.6%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 13.0%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
PostgreSQL	13.0%
MariaDB	5.6%
Other	81.4%

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

Anand Bandi

Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd

Has supported web application data needs but requires design adjustments to manage complex queries efficiently

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 certain data and complex queries, we see performance issues. We tried the advanced replication feature between different regions, replicating data specifically residing on MariaDB to two different regions of MariaDB data, and there were some technical snags in terms of slowness and longer processing time. Point-in-time recovery in MariaDB is good for small databases. When data volume increases beyond 5 GB or 10 GB per day or runs into double-digit GBs, we found some performance issues. For data below 10 GB, it works fine. Performance is the primary focus area for MariaDB, particularly during transactions or complex query jobs where slow performance is observed. MariaDB is scalable and easy to scale.

Read full review

Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

High-volume transactions have reduced failures and improve customer service efficiency

The best feature is performance, because of which I decided on PostgreSQL. I have also enabled the PG vector plugin on top of PostgreSQL. I have the opportunity to use two different features and two different flavors in a single product, which is the best thing about PostgreSQL. Initially, we had some hiccups around the performance part, but later we did indexing in PostgreSQL and now it is working very well. Even when we are doing 100,000 transactions in a day, PostgreSQL is working excellently. The interface is another best feature. If I need to do any query, I simply install the plugin on my local, which is pgAdmin. Through pgAdmin, I am able to communicate with PostgreSQL and execute all my SQL queries. I am getting a better UI with PostgreSQL as the backend, which is also one of the best options. PG vector is also very strong from PostgreSQL where I have implemented RAG and on a daily basis, I inject thousands of pages of PDF. More than 100 PDFs are coming into my system and one PDF is around 1,000 pages. We are injecting them into PostgreSQL and converting them into dimensions and inserting them into PG vector. The level of transactions we are doing on a daily basis is substantial, and we are getting very good throughput and low latency from PostgreSQL. When we were doing more than 50,000 transactions in a minute with the previous database, we were getting a lot of latency issues with threads getting blocked and abruptly closed unwantedly. After doing extensive research, we decided to move to PostgreSQL. Now, we are doing around 100,000 transactions in PostgreSQL and we are getting good throughput with no latency.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

University

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	58
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	49

Questions from the Community

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 ...

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What needs improvement with MariaDB?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for MariaDB?

My main use case for MariaDB was web applications, and I have been using MariaDB for just about a year now as I was in the development team. A specific web application where I used MariaDB is a hea...

See all answers

How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?

I purchased from the marketplace, so licensing and pricing cost is acceptable. To be honest, there is a separate team who handles the cost of licensing everything. I have admin access on Azure and ...

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What needs improvement with PostgreSQL?

The only thing for PG vector is if the dimension limit could be increased. Currently, the dimension limit is around 1,000 to 1,052. If I need to increase the dimension to 3,000 or 5,000, that optio...

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Comparisons

MySQL vs MariaDB

Compared 13% of the time

Firebird SQL vs MariaDB

Compared 10% of the time

SQL Server vs MariaDB

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Database vs MariaDB

Compared 5% of the time

Percona Server vs MariaDB

Compared 4% of the time

More MariaDB Competitors

Firebird SQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 12% of the time

MySQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 7% of the time

LanceDB vs PostgreSQL

Compared 5% of the time

Chroma vs PostgreSQL

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs PostgreSQL

Compared 5% of the time

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB

July 2026

Download MariaDB product report

Buyer's Guide

PostgreSQL

July 2026

Download PostgreSQL product report

Overview

MariaDB is a robust database solution known for its scalability, speed, and user-friendliness. It supports seamless integration and provides reliable performance in handling large datasets, offering strong community backing alongside its open-source nature.

MariaDB is renowned for efficiently managing large databases and complex relationships while being stable and easy to integrate. With advanced features like replication, encryption, and SQL compatibility, it offers fast query processing. Its straightforward installation and management processes facilitate seamless enterprise integrations and ensure high performance in real-time data scenarios. However, enhancements in enterprise integration, clustering, and scalability are necessary. Addressing challenges with complex queries, security, and user experience would be advantageous, alongside offering robust technical support and a competitive pricing model.

What are the key features of MariaDB?

Scalability: Handles large databases and complex relationships effectively.
User-Friendliness: Offers easy integration and management.
Speed: Provides fast query processing using multi-core processing efficiently.
Advanced Features: Includes replication, encryption, and SQL compatibility.
Open-Source: Encourages strong community support and continuous improvement.

What benefits should users consider when evaluating MariaDB?

Performance: High performance in real-time data processing.
Integration: Seamless integration with enterprise systems and SaaS applications.
Community Support: Strong open-source community for troubleshooting and development.
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive pricing compared to proprietary databases.
Compatibility: MySQL compatibility for easier transitions and migrations.

MariaDB is extensively utilized in backend support for cloud telephony platforms, ERP systems, and financial software, being crucial for web application development and data storage. Entities favor its compatibility with MySQL for complex join queries and its support for structured data management in SaaS applications.

MariaDB

PostgreSQL is a versatile and reliable database management system commonly used for web development, data analysis, and building scalable databases.

It offers advanced features like indexing, replication, and transaction management. Users appreciate its flexibility, performance, and ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. Its robustness, scalability, and support for complex queries make it highly valuable.

Additionally, PostgreSQL's extensibility, flexibility, community support, and frequent updates contribute to its ongoing improvement and stability.

PostgreSQL

Sample Customers

Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities

1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

June 2026

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