MariaDB

MariaDB is a community-developed relational database forked from MySQL. Michael Widenius, one of MySQL's original creators, started the project in April 2009 — the same day Oracle announced its acquisition of Sun Microsystems — to ensure the database would remain under open-source governance. MariaDB maintains wire-protocol compatibility with MySQL, so most MySQL client libraries, connectors, and tools work without modification.

The current long-term release is MariaDB 11.8. Beyond the InnoDB engine it shares with MySQL, MariaDB includes the Aria storage engine (a crash-safe replacement for MyISAM), ColumnStore for analytical workloads, and its own optimizer improvements. The MariaDB Foundation oversees community governance, while MariaDB Corporation provides commercial support and enterprise tooling.

The knowledge base serves as the primary documentation resource. The server source code is on GitHub under the GPL.