Categories: Blog

0.06a History of MariaDB

Origins

2008 – The Fork Begins
- MySQL AB had been acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008. Concerns began to grow in the open-source community about the future of MySQL, especially after Oracle announced it would acquire Sun in 2009.
- Michael “Monty” Widenius, the original creator of MySQL, forked the MySQL codebase to create MariaDB, naming it after his younger daughter Maria (just as MySQL had been named after his older daughter, My).
- The MariaDB Foundation was founded to ensure the new database would remain fully open source.

2010 – MariaDB 5.1 released
- Fully compatible with MySQL 5.1 but with performance improvements and new features.
2012 – MariaDB 5.5 released
- Added the Aria storage engine (designed for crash safety and as a MyISAM replacement).
- Began including more storage engines than MySQL by default (e.g., XtraDB instead of InnoDB).

2013–2014 – Major Linux distributions such as Fedora, openSUSE, and Arch Linux switched their default MySQL packages to MariaDB.
- MariaDB 10.0 introduced multi-source replication and parallel replication.
2015 – MariaDB 10.1 released
- Added Galera Cluster for synchronous multi-master replication.
- Security enhancements and encryption features.

2016 – MariaDB Corporation raises $9 million funding.
- MariaDB 10.2 introduced window functions, common table expressions (CTEs), and JSON functions — features MySQL had not yet implemented at the time.
2017–2018 – MariaDB 10.3 & 10.4
- System-versioned tables, improved replication, and more Oracle-compatibility features.

2019 – MariaDB launches SkySQL, a managed cloud database service.
2020–2022 – MariaDB 10.5–10.7 bring more security, instant ADD COLUMN, and improved engine support.
2022 – MariaDB Corporation becomes MariaDB plc and goes public on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker: MRDB).