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MariaDB vs Percona Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

MariaDB
Ranking in Open Source Databases
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (9th)
Percona Server
Ranking in Open Source Databases
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of MariaDB is 5.6%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Percona Server is 2.4%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MariaDB5.6%
Percona Server2.4%
Other92.0%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

AB
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.
Pieter Geelen - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer at geelen.io
Reliable open-source database has supported our migration and improved e-commerce performance
Percona Server seems great to me overall. If I had to think of any small area for improvement for Percona Server, it would be around the proxy story. When adding a proxy to manage traffic better, we first tried SQL Proxy, but it never really worked for us, which was unfortunate because SQL Proxy offers better optimizations for read performance. We did have success with HAProxy, but it works on a network level, while SQL Proxy was designed to be SQL-aware and distribute parts of the query across the database cluster. The performance gain we were hoping for with SQL Proxy did not materialize, so we remained on the network level with HAProxy. Databases can be finicky regarding the performance they need. We had some disk I/O latency issues, which led us to use different types of nodes in our Kubernetes cluster where we provisioned Percona Server explicitly. There is a lot of IOPS happening under the hood, and while I suspect the application was not very efficient, it was also challenging to identify that we were experiencing performance issues due to disk performance. It would be helpful to clarify the metrics related to disk I/O latency so we could understand where our bottlenecks are.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Visual Studio offers unit testing integration and extensive searching capabilities."
"The performance is very good."
"MariaDB can solve things better than MySQL, and MariaDB has better performance than MySQL."
"It's easy to set up."
"From a customer perspective, MariaDB is a good choice for cluster configuration. It's also easy to operate and cheap."
"If you want a reliable, easy to maintain database solution, I think that MariaDB on RedHat/CentOS is an option that every DBA should consider."
"The most valuable feature of MariaDB is that it is open-source and we can easily migrate from other databases, such as Oracle to MariaDB."
"It has worked very well for us so far."
"After switching to Percona Server, we were able to resolve those issues quickly."
"We find the product mostly stable."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization because it is open source, and if the official MongoDB goes in different directions or makes its product expensive, we can still use Percona Server, which serves as a sort of safety net."
"In my use of Percona Server, I've found that the replication and High Availability features are the most valuable."
"Percona Server's scalability is very strong, as it features thread pooling for over 10,000 connections, scales out horizontally, and comes with XtraDB Cluster and ProxySQL, making it very effective."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization by reducing downtime for applications and improving backup capabilities."
 

Cons

"The maintenance and performance could be a bit better."
"The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper."
"It would be good if they can maybe improve the mass import in the database. Currently, for importing a large number of data, we create a CSV file and upload all the things in the system. The system does not activate them by default. We have to do this manually. This may be due to the version we are using, but this is something we would like to see improved."
"The ability to create stored procedures in MariaDB is an area where the tool lacks a bit."
"It would be good to have tools for debugging procedures and functions."
"A well-known issue for a lot of different users is associated with write-intensive applications."
"The features available are very basic."
"The interface should be more user-friendly. It should be able to connect directly to the database and Interact with it without having to use commands. It needs better integration."
"If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal."
"Percona Server could be improved to keep pace with other flavors of MySQL, such as MariaDB, and could pivot to be Percona Server for MariaDB given Oracle's reduced investment in MySQL recently."
"Percona Server could be improved by adding more advanced query fields, which would be very helpful."
"It doesn't reclaim disk space when rows are deleted."
"I also think there should be more use cases and documentation on deploying in Kubernetes with real-life examples, as currently, the documentation is minimal, making it difficult in a production situation."
"If I had to think of any small area for improvement for Percona Server, it would be around the proxy story."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company uses the free version of the solution."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
"We use the solution's free version."
"MariaDB is available for free."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."
"It's an open-source solution."
"When it comes to MariaDB, it should have a more cost-effective license."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise26
No data available
 

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 ...
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
Sometimes, complex queries that were supported in Oracle are not available in MariaDB. Advanced indexing is not available. Oracle is very advanced compared to MariaDB, and those advanced features a...
What is your primary use case for MariaDB?
My client has been using MariaDB for the last four years. We are using MariaDB in the cloud.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Percona Server?
I do not have experience with pricing, setup cost, or licensing for Percona Server.
What needs improvement with Percona Server?
I believe it would be great to have tools to deploy Percona Server in Docker so that we can split a huge database server into many small servers, which are easier to maintain and delegate to junior...
What is your primary use case for Percona Server?
My main use case for Percona Server is deploying the community version without support to MongoDB servers in Kubernetes, and I also use Percona Server Exporter tools. Using Percona Server for deplo...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Pricefalls Marketplace, Micpoint, Rent the Runway, Transmart, Wattpad, Singular Group, Invoca, 3E
Find out what your peers are saying about MariaDB vs. Percona Server and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.