MariaDB is the completely versule enterprise database solution,able to handle transactional, analytical, or hybrid transactional/analytical workloads as well as relational or document data, and the ability to scale from standalone databases and columnar data warehouses to fully distributed SQL databases executing millions of transactions per second and performing interactive, ad hoc analytics on billions of rows.

MariaDB intended to maintain high compatibility with MySQL, ensuring a drop-in replacement capability with library binary parity and exact matching with MySQL APIs and commands. However, new features diverge more. It includes new storage engines like Aria, ColumnStore, and MyRocks.

It is built upon the values of performance, stability, and openness, and MariaDB Foundation ensures contributions will be accepted on technical merit. New functionality includes advanced clustering with Galera Cluster 4, compatibility features with Oracle Database and Temporal Data Tables, allowing one to query the data as it stood at any point in the past.