MariaDB vs PostgreSQL comparison

MariaDB and PostgreSQL are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. MariaDB is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8, while PostgreSQL is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. MariaDB holds a 6.7% mindshare in OSD, compared to PostgreSQL’s 18.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of MariaDB users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of PostgreSQL users who would recommend it.

MariaDB

Read 59 MariaDB reviews

3,813 Views
3,495 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

PostgreSQL

Read 125 PostgreSQL reviews

8,229 Views
7,307 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

MariaDB

PostgreSQL

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

PostgreSQL and MariaDB are leading contenders in the open-source database category, enhancing database management with their unique strengths and features. PostgreSQL appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features which cater to complex corporate needs, although MariaDB holds a niche for users transitioning from MySQL with its simplicity and performance.

Features: PostgreSQL is recognized for its advanced SQL standards support, scalability, and concurrency which make it ideal for complex corporate environments. Its open-source nature and diverse extensions boost adaptability. MariaDB, known for its simplicity and efficiency, may not have the feature depth of PostgreSQL but excels particularly in aiding MySQL users switching to open-source.

Room for Improvement: PostgreSQL could improve performance on read-only queries and support for certain SQL functions. Additionally, its setup complexity and limited replication features could be enhanced. MariaDB might benefit from improved scalability and robustness for large-scale environments, especially with extensive clustering and replication needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PostgreSQL supports a range of deployments including cloud solutions but often requires technical expertise. While community support is strong, centralized tech support is lacking without third-party options. MariaDB offers seamless deployment in similar environments and eases transitions for MySQL users. While it enjoys community-driven support, paid services are available for quick issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: Both PostgreSQL and MariaDB offer cost-effective solutions being open-source with no licensing fees. PostgreSQL’s rich features may incur higher implementation costs due to the expertise required, whereas MariaDB is more economical in setup and operation thanks to its user-friendly interface and compatibility with existing MySQL installations.

To learn more, read our detailed MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

April 2025

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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

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (5th)

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Open Source Databases

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of MariaDB is 6.7%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 18.0%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

KumarManish

Senior Technical Manager at Johnson Controls, Inc.

Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products

We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

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AdityaSharma3

Vice President Business at Techmagnate: Digital Marketing Agency

Transaction processes are fast and good replication capability

Use cases include querying data warehouses and databases to fetch data for clients already working on PostgreSQL. We also use Postgres for building reports It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping. The query speed is fast, and the…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It delivers fast processing times, particularly for frequent select queries and insert/update operations."

"I haven't faced any technical issues with the product, and it works fine."

"It is a scalable solution. It easily scales up and scales down."

"The initial setup of MariaDB is simple enough."

"MariaDB performs well as the backend database for our cloud-based telephony solution."

"We like the easy way that we can collect data from other databases."

"The solution is very stable. It was originally built under MySQL. It has a similar level of stability."

"I am editing."

More MariaDB pros

"The product's deployment is easy."

"What I like is that it's quite powerful in terms of performance."

"We managed to reduce the storage space needed to 10% of the original size, without affecting data integrity, and we significantly improved the performance."

"We are able to create many different types of jobs and items with this solution making it one of the most valuable features."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"We often use PostgreSQL for operations monitoring because we are a manufacturing company."

"We use the solution to store tables. It is stable and performs well."

"It is easy to install and easy to manage. There is no license on it, so it is free. There is high compatibility with Oracle, and there are many tools for the migration of data from Oracle to Postgre."

Cons

"MariaDB can improve by adding more features. There are a lot of features, which are available in Oracle, and which are not available in MariaDB. We hope they will introduce the features soon."

"The price could be less expensive."

"I would like to see more compatibility going forward. This would help if there is a need to change databases."

"The maintenance and performance could be a bit better."

"It should work across all fields like SQLite, as it is the basis of any application, even apps for phones and the like."

"Lacks time series data and additional driving support would be helpful."

"The PL/SQL performance is slow if you have big batch jobs running overnight."

"Integration with AWS could be improved."

More MariaDB cons

"If it was free to use, it would be the perfect solution."

"PostgreSQL could improve by providing a geographical solution for tracking trucks and people in the field. They might already have features similar to this and I have not found them. I haven't done research about this topic."

"The solution could improve the integration."

"Sometimes, it becomes slow because of the network. So, there is room for improvement in performance."

"The solution needs to improve the query, documentation, and JSON data functionality."

"A better graphic user-interface would be nice to see."

"It still needs to be more mature and have some backup feature. We are normally dealing with Oracle's data, and we have very strong online tools to back up the data and do other things. PostgreSQL still needs to do more in this area as well as in the high availability area. There are many external tools that you can use for PostgreSQL's high availability, but there is no embedded tool within PostgreSQL for high availability. It could have a feature similar to Oracle for working on a distributed system. It can have some scripts to improve the monitoring and some tools to do performance analysis. We have a workaround for most of such requirements except for the support for a distributed system, which is very difficult to have. This area should be included in the core of the database itself."

"It would be great if the solution offered even more integration capabilities."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is free of charge."

"It's an open-source solution."

"My company uses the free version of the solution."

"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."

"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."

"When it comes to MariaDB, it should have a more cost-effective license."

"This is an open-source product, which can be used free of charge."

"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."

More MariaDB pricing and cost advice

"Our company pays for it. There are free versions available, but for advanced features, you obviously have to pay."

"We use the open-source version of PostgreSQL and not the enterprise edition."

"PostgreSQL is open-source, so if capable admins are available then the setup cost can be $0."

"It is an open-source platform."

"It is free. There is no license on it."

"It is open-source. If you use it on-premise, it is free. It also has enterprise or commercial versions. If you go for the cloud version, there will be a cost, but it is lower than Oracle or Microsoft."

"The community version of Postgre is basically free."

"Affordable solution."

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MariaDB?

The integration with other products is seamless.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?

I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.

See all answers

What needs improvement with MariaDB?

The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.

See all answers

How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...

See all answers

What do you like most about PostgreSQL?

It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?

The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.

See all answers

Comparisons

SQL Server vs MariaDB

Compared 24% of the time

Firebird SQL vs MariaDB

Compared 23% of the time

Oracle Database vs MariaDB

Compared 10% of the time

MySQL vs MariaDB

Compared 9% of the time

Percona Server vs MariaDB

Compared 5% of the time

More MariaDB Competitors

Firebird SQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 36% of the time

MySQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 12% of the time

EDB Postgres Advanced Server vs PostgreSQL

Compared 11% of the time

Chroma vs PostgreSQL

Compared 8% of the time

LanceDB vs PostgreSQL

Compared 4% of the time

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB

April 2025

Download MariaDB product report

Buyer's Guide

PostgreSQL

April 2025

Download PostgreSQL product report

Overview

MariaDB is an open source relational database created by the original founders of MySQL. It is considered one of the most popular and trusted database servers throughout the world. MariaDB is a valued component found in most cloud offerings and is the default in many Linux tools. It is also widely used by Wikipedia, WordPress, and Google, among other well-known sites. Maria DB easily melds data into concise information from a vast array of applications, such as banking, online shopping, websites, and more.

MariaDB was originally created to improve MySQL performance. It is the most widely chosen database server due to the solution being super fast, robust, user-friendly, and easily scalable. MariaDB also offers a substantial ecosystem of plugins, storage engines, and numerous other valuable tools that make it very attractive for a significant offering of use cases.

The solution’s newest functionalities include compatibility with Oracle Database and Temporal Data Tables, and advanced clustering with Galera Cluster 4, which make it easier for users to research data history from any point in the past. Additionally, the most recent versions include JSON and GIS features. MariaDB is committed to staying an open source solution.

MariaDB Features

More storage: MariaDB works with more storage engines than MySQL and most other database servers available. Some storage options include, but are not limited to ARCHIVE, MERGE, CSV, MEMORY, BLACKHOLE, MyISAM, ColumnStore, MyRocks, and Cassandra.
Super fast: MariaDB offers faster authentication checks. The FlushSSL permits SSL certificates to be reloaded without a server restart, resulting in huge time savings.
Improved testing: MariaDB offers an extending testing suite that runs faster and can test more than ever before. Bugs can be easily fixed and invalid tests removed.
Genuinely open source: Every code in MariaDB is GPL, LGPL, or BSD. Client libraries [for Windows (ODBC), Java (JDBC), or C] allow linking to closed source software. All fixed bug cases and development plans are completely public. MariaDB is a community-developed solution representing the true spirit of open source products.

Reviews from Real Users

Faustine C., Engineering Supervisor- Corporate Data Solutions and Services at TZ Telecoms Corporation, shares, “The software provides a lot of information on what is happening inside the database. For most performance parameters it is easy to know if something is not right in the configuration or optimization which helps engineers take remedial fine-tuning measures. For example, if the database is underperforming it is easy to know which performance parameter can be adjusted to handle the workload. It is difficult to troubleshoot database issues if many performance parameters can not be monitored or debugged which is the case with some database management systems. It provides great monitoring of data storage, processing, and performance stability which is really important for real-time data storage and processing. It's a user-friendly product.”

A PeerSpot user who is a Senior Engineer at a tech services company relates, “ The solution's high availability is its most valuable aspect. We have found the product to be stable and the initial setup is pretty simple. I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. I'm very happy with it overall. I would recommend the solution to others. It's easy to find details about the product online and to learn about it.”

MariaDB

PostgreSQL is a versatile and reliable database management system commonly used for web development, data analysis, and building scalable databases.

It offers advanced features like indexing, replication, and transaction management. Users appreciate its flexibility, performance, and ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. Its robustness, scalability, and support for complex queries make it highly valuable.

Additionally, PostgreSQL's extensibility, flexibility, community support, and frequent updates contribute to its ongoing improvement and stability.

PostgreSQL

Sample Customers

Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities

1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

April 2025

Free Report: MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

Find out what your peers are saying about MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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