MariaDB vs PostgreSQL comparison

MariaDB and PostgreSQL are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. MariaDB is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.9, while PostgreSQL is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4. MariaDB holds a 6.7% mindshare in OSD, compared to PostgreSQL’s 16.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of MariaDB users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of PostgreSQL users who would recommend it.

MariaDB

Read 60 MariaDB reviews

5,709 Views
2,683 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

PostgreSQL

Read 125 PostgreSQL reviews

7,275 Views
6,620 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

MariaDB

PostgreSQL

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

PostgreSQL and MariaDB are major competitors in the open-source database market. While both offer robust solutions, PostgreSQL stands out due to its advanced features and compliance with standards, especially in complex query handling and extensive documentation.

Features: PostgreSQL excels in standards compliance, scalability, JSON support, and community-driven documentation. It is favored for handling complex queries and supporting various programming languages. MariaDB is preferred for easier replication, flexibility, and speed, especially in select queries. It also offers a user-friendly setup, making it accessible for simpler deployments.

Room for Improvement: PostgreSQL needs enhancements in real-time application support, simplified replication, and partitioning. Its complex setup and SQL query limitations are identified as areas for improvement. MariaDB faces challenges with clustering, master-master replication, and time-series data support. Improving stability under heavy loads, performance, and documentation are key areas for MariaDB.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both PostgreSQL and MariaDB can be deployed across diverse environments such as on-premises, public, private, and hybrid clouds. PostgreSQL benefits from a strong community-driven support system and extensive documentation. However, MariaDB users appreciate its active support community but note the need for better documentation for complex deployments.

Pricing and ROI: PostgreSQL, with its BSD license, offers zero software cost, being attractive to budget-conscious organizations, though expertise might be required. MariaDB is recognized for cost-effectiveness, with the community edition available for free, offering significant licensing cost savings. Both databases provide strong ROI for enterprises seeking low-cost, flexible solutions, although PostgreSQL may have additional costs for advanced features.

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

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

September 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

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (5th)

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Open Source Databases

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of MariaDB is 6.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 16.6%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
PostgreSQL	16.6%
MariaDB	6.7%
Other	76.7%

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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PavithrarajShetty

Software Architect at Tetherfi

Offers simplicity and is cheaply priced

I haven't gone through the scalability aspect since I was using MySQL Server. I haven't worked to a high level in PostgreSQL, but with MySQL Server, I have managed clustering and partitioning. I think I haven't put much focus on PostgreSQL, so I am not sure how it behaves or how it works.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has PL/SQL compatibility."

"MariaDB can solve things better than MySQL. Maria DB has better performance than MySQL."

"It's a very easy product to set up."

"I like the global transaction IDs (GTIDs) feature. It's quite reliable for replication between a master and a replica server, and it's a feature that MySQL also has but implemented differently."

"The solution's features have effectively met our operational requirements as a standard SQL database."

"What I like best about MariaDB is that it is open-source and reliable."

"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source product and offers its users great online community support."

"The documentation is quite straightforward."

More MariaDB pros

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

"It is easy to use."

"It's a useful solution, that can be widely used."

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

"The initial setup is quick and easy."

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

"The solution is quite stable."

"It is very simple to manage."

Cons

"The difficult part related to the product stems not from the tool itself but is related to learning how to implement the product in the right way without creating any wrong configuration that could cause security issues or performance issues."

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

"The product needs more features and more functionality. It's imperative that it supports more platforms, and supports more operating systems."

"The solution should do some fine-tuning on maybe the transaction per second so that users can get more than they can on the Microsoft SQL Server."

"In future releases, mainly the addition of security features would be beneficial for MariaDB."

"The ability to create stored procedures in MariaDB is an area where the tool lacks a bit."

"There is not much support available."

"I would like to see a better user interface which would make the tool less complex."

More MariaDB cons

"PostgreSQL’s performance could be improved."

"There are some products out there that have a slightly different method of implementation for the SQL language. Some of those are slightly better in some areas, and PostgreSQL is slightly better in some areas. I would probably like to match all of those products together. It is just down to the functionality. For example, Oracle has a number of options within SQL that are outside of what you would class as the SQL standard. PostgreSQL misses some of those, but PostgreSQL does other things that are better than what Oracle does. I would like to merge those two products so that there is a certain amount of functionality in a single product."

"The database and applications can become very slow."

"It could be more secure."

"The pricing could be better."

"The solution could improve the integration."

"PostgreSQL uses high memory compared to its counterparts when a highly demanding load is involved, especially one that makes many concurrent connections to the database."

"Sometimes, the views create problems. If you don't have the view, sometimes what happens is you need to have the drivers properly set up for PostgreSQL."

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."

"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."

"It's an open-source 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."

"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price since there are some support costs involved, even though it isn't an open-source solution."

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

More MariaDB pricing and cost advice

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

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

"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."

"PostgreSQL is a free and open-source database."

"This solution can offer a cheaper choice for customers since it is open-source."

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

"It could be much cheaper. If you would like to build an application on Amazon today, PostgreSQL is the standard database with Redshift. If you want other databases, you can add them, but PostgreSQL is the basis of everything. It's a question of money, that's it."

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

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

University

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	58
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	45

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

Firebird SQL vs MariaDB

Compared 24% of the time

SQL Server vs MariaDB

Compared 20% of the time

MySQL vs MariaDB

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Database vs MariaDB

Compared 7% of the time

Percona Server vs MariaDB

Compared 6% of the time

More MariaDB Competitors

Firebird SQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 31% of the time

MySQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 12% of the time

EDB Postgres Advanced Server vs PostgreSQL

Compared 7% of the time

Chroma vs PostgreSQL

Compared 6% of the time

LanceDB vs PostgreSQL

Compared 4% of the time

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

MariaDB

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

PostgreSQL

September 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

September 2025

Free Report: MariaDB vs. PostgreSQL

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

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