MariaDB Server

Judgement

What it is

Building block

What it does

MariaDB, the community fork of MySQL, a relational database with multiple storage engines, Galera clustering, JSON and vector support.

Adopt it when

You need a MySQL-compatible database under the GPL, or run software that targets MySQL or MariaDB.

Watch out

It has drifted from MySQL 8 in features and syntax, so check compatibility; MaxScale and some tools use the BSL license.

Ready for

Production-ready

Runs as

Self-hosted server and cloud service

Built with

C++ and C

How established

Established: started 12 years ago, latest release mariadb-13.0.2.

What the license allows

Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.

Judged on 2026-11-03 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Built from

Follow it down: MariaDB Server → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

Built on MariaDB Server: 21 projects

1. 1
   TypeORM typeorm

   TypeScript & JavaScript ORM for Node.js — supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, SQL Server, Oracle, and more.

   Building block Production-ready You maintain a NestJS or TypeScript back end already built on it.

   ★ 37k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 5 days ago
2. 2
   Framework laravel

   Laravel is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax.

   Framework or platform Production-ready You build web apps in PHP and want a mature framework with extensive tooling and hosting options.

   ★ 35k MIT PHP Active, pushed today
3. 3
   Bagisto bagisto

   Open Source eCommerce & Multi-Vendor Marketplace Platform Built with Laravel for Enterprise-Scale Commerce, Supporting 10M+ SKUs

   Complete system Production-ready A business with PHP developers wants a self-hosted store or marketplace it can customise in Laravel.

   ★ 28k MIT PHP Active, pushed 10 days ago
4. 4
   Postal postalserver

   📮 A fully featured open source mail delivery platform for incoming & outgoing e-mail

   Complete system Production-ready You send large volumes of transactional email and want your own Sendgrid-style platform on your own IPs.

   ★ 17k MIT Ruby Active, pushed 4 days ago
5. 5
   Snipe-IT grokability

   A free open source IT asset/license management system

   Complete system Production-ready Your IT team needs to know who has which laptop and licence, self-hosted or on the paid hosted plan.

   ★ 15k AGPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed today
6. 6
   Mailcow-dockerized mailcow

   mailcow: dockerized - 🐮 + 🐋 = 💕

   Complete system Production-ready You want to host email for several domains yourself with a full admin interface.

   ★ 14k GPL-3.0 JavaScript Active, pushed yesterday
7. 7
   DooTask kuaifan

   DooTask是一款开源在线项目任务管理工具，提供各类文档协作工具、在线思维导图、在线流程图、项目管理、任务分发、即时IM，文件管理等工具；同时消息功能使用非对称加密技术让你的沟通更安全。

   Complete system Usable A Chinese-speaking team wants tasks and chat in one self-hosted tool.

   ★ 5.6k AGPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed 5 days ago
8. 8
   Shlink shlinkio

   The definitive self-hosted URL shortener

   Complete system Production-ready You need an API-first shortener for marketing or product links on your own infrastructure.

   ★ 5.4k MIT PHP Active, pushed today
9. 9
   WriteFreely writefreely

   A clean, Markdown-based publishing platform made for writers. Write together and build a community.

   Complete system Usable You want a distraction-free blog that Mastodon users can follow.

   ★ 5.3k AGPL-3.0 Go Active, pushed yesterday
10. 10
    Kener rajnandan1

    Stunning status pages, batteries included!

    Complete system Usable You want a good-looking public status page you host yourself.

    ★ 5.2k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today
11. 11
    Personal Management System Volmarg

    Your web application for managing personal data.

    Complete system Usable You want one self-hosted place for assorted personal records and are comfortable running Symfony.

    ★ 4.2k MIT PHP Active, pushed 4 days ago
12. 12
    LinkAce Kovah

    LinkAce is a self-hosted archive to collect links of your favorite websites.

    Complete system Production-ready You want a long-term personal link library that checks for dead links.

    ★ 3.4k GPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed today
13. 13
    Databasement David-Crty

    Self-hosted database backup manager with a web UI. Schedule, backup, and restore MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB, SQLite & Redis to S3, SFTP, Samba or local storage. SSH Tunnel support.

    Complete system Usable You look after several database types and want one web UI for scheduled dumps and restores.

    ★ 2.6k MIT PHP Active, pushed today
14. 14
    Fae wearefine

    CMS for Rails. For Reals.

    Framework or platform Usable A Rails team wants generated admin models and views that they will customise heavily.

    ★ 852 MIT Ruby Active, pushed 2 days ago
15. 15
    FeatureProbe FeatureProbe

    FeatureProbe is an open source feature management service. 开源的高效可视化『特性』管理平台，提供特性开关、灰度发布、AB实验全功能。

    Complete system Usable You want a self-hosted feature flag service and can accept a project whose main community is Chinese-speaking.

    ★ 1.6k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Slowing, pushed 5 months ago
16. 16
    Academico academico-sis

    Laravel & Filament-based school management platform for small and medium institutions

    Complete system Usable A small language school or training centre needs enrolment and scheduling software.

    ★ 406 MIT PHP Active, pushed 14 days ago
17. 17
    OpenDocMan opendocman

    OpenDocMan - Free PHP Document Management System DMS

    Complete system Usable A small lab needs basic controlled-document management on PHP hosting.

    ★ 283 GPL-2.0 PHP Active, pushed 2 months ago
18. 18
    Mailtrain Mailtrain-org

    Self hosted newsletter app

    Complete system Usable Only if you already run it; listmonk is a better-maintained choice for new setups.

    ★ 5.8k GPL-3.0 JavaScript Quiet, pushed 13 months ago
19. 19
    Shortlink flyfish-dev

    Self-hosted short link and live QR platform with ownership, review, branded QR codes, analytics, and an auditable path to AI-assisted operations.

    Complete system Experimental A Chinese-speaking marketing or operations team prints QR codes and needs to change their targets later.

    ★ 169 AGPL-3.0 Go Active, pushed 21 days ago
20. 20
    REMS-For-Organisations bearlike

    🚀 Streamline club management with our all-in-one system: bulk mailer, certificate generator & more. Perfect for student organizations.

    Complete system Usable A student society needs event certificates and mailings without paying for several SaaS tools.

    ★ 162 MIT HTML Active, pushed 8 days ago

Open-source alternatives to MariaDB Server

1. 1
   Prometheus prometheus

   The Prometheus monitoring system and time series database.

   Complete system Production-ready You run services or Kubernetes and need metrics and alerting with the de facto standard toolset.

   ★ 67k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
2. 2
   Etcd etcd-io

   Distributed reliable key-value store for the most critical data of a distributed system

   Building block Production-ready You need a small amount of critical coordination data kept consistent across a cluster.

   ★ 52k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
3. 3
   ClickHouse ClickHouse

   ClickHouse® is a real-time analytics database management system

   Building block Production-ready You need fast analytics on large append-heavy data such as events, logs or metrics.

   ★ 51k Apache-2.0 C++ Active, pushed today
4. 4
   Milvus milvus-io

   Milvus is a high-performance, cloud-native vector database built for scalable vector ANN search

   Building block Production-ready You need vector search over hundreds of millions of embeddings or more and have the people to run a distributed system.

   ★ 47k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
5. 5
   DuckDB duckdb

   DuckDB is a high-performance analytical database system

   Building block Production-ready You analyse data that fits on one machine and want fast SQL without running a server.

   ★ 43k MIT C++ Active, pushed today
6. 6
   TiDB pingcap

   TiDB is built for agentic workloads that grow unpredictably, with ACID guarantees and native support for transactions, analytics, and vector search. No data silos. No noisy neighbors. No infrastructure ceiling.

   Building block Production-ready You run MySQL workloads that have outgrown one server and need to scale out without manual sharding.

   ★ 41k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
7. 7
   Qdrant qdrant

   Qdrant - High-performance, massive-scale Vector Database and Vector Search Engine for the next generation of AI. Also available in the cloud https://cloud.qdrant.io/

   Building block Production-ready You are building semantic search, RAG or recommendations and want a dedicated vector store that is simple to self-host.

   ★ 35k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today
8. 8
   Cognee topoteretes

   Cognee is the open-source AI memory platform for agents. Give your AI agents persistent long-term memory with small models for free

   Building block Usable You build agents that need long-term memory across sessions and want graph-based retrieval rather than plain vector RAG.

   ★ 33k Apache-2.0 Python Active, pushed today

Commercial databases

1. 1
   Snowflake Snowflake Inc.

   Snowflake powers AI, data engineering, applications, and analytics on a trusted, scalable AI Data Cloud—eliminating silos and accelerating innovation.

   Complete system Production-ready A company has many data sources to combine for analytics and wants a managed warehouse that scales without tuning.

   6.5k readers a month Since 2012 Commercial
2. 2
   MongoDB Atlas MongoDB, Inc.

   Build AI applications and agents on MongoDB Atlas platform, the #1 modern, run anywhere platform that brings together real-time data, intelligent retrieval, and governed action.

   Building block Production-ready Your app suits a JSON document model and you want MongoDB without running it yourself.

   4.1k readers a month Since 2009 Commercial
3. 3
   Oracle Database Oracle Corporation

   Proprietary database management system

   Building block Production-ready A large enterprise runs software that requires Oracle, or needs its high-end availability features.

   2.2k readers a month Since 1979 Commercial
4. 4
   Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft

   SQL Server 2025 redefines what's possible for enterprise data. With developer-first features and integration with analytics and AI models, SQL Server 2025 accelerates AI innovation using the data you already have.

   Building block Production-ready Your business runs .NET applications or vendor software that requires SQL Server.

   945 readers a month Commercial
5. 5
   Google BigQuery Google

   BigQuery is the autonomous data and AI platform, automating the entire data life cycle so you can go from data to AI to action faster.

   Complete system Production-ready You are on Google Cloud or export GA4 data and want SQL analytics without managing servers.

   313 readers a month Since 2010 Commercial
6. 6
   InfluxDB Cloud InfluxData

   InfluxDB 3 is the leading time series database to collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-resolution data in real-time.

   Building block Production-ready You collect high-volume IoT or monitoring metrics and want a purpose-built time-series store you do not run yourself.

   298 readers a month Since 2013 Commercial