MariaDB is a free and open-source relational database management system compatible with MySQL. It is developed by a community of developers who also maintain MySQL. MariaDB is named after the daughter of Monty Widenius, the creator of MySQL. The project was started in 2009 when Widenius decided to fork MySQL due to concerns about its future under Oracle’s ownership.
MariaDB has been designed as a drop-in replacement for MySQL, meaning that it can be used interchangeably with MySQL without requiring changes to applications or databases. It offers many features like MySQL, including support for stored procedures, triggers, and views. In addition, MariaDB introduces some new features not found in MySQL, such as column stores and virtual columns. MariaDB is actively developed and maintained by a global community of developers. It is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and binaries are distributed for various platforms.
