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Comparison

MariaDB vs PostgreSQL

Both are proven open source databases. MariaDB ships high availability, clustering, analytics and vector search as one supported platform instead of a stack of add-ons.

A production PostgreSQL setup often means Patroni, etcd, PgBouncer and several extensions, each on its own release cycle. MariaDB Enterprise Platform delivers failover, connection routing, columnar storage and vector search in one platform from one vendor.

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Capabilities

How MariaDB and PostgreSQL compare

High availability

Streaming replication with failover from Patroni or repmgr versus automatic failover and transaction replay built into MaxScale

Multi-primary writes

Not in core PostgreSQL; needs a third-party extension versus Galera Cluster, which provides built-in active-active and synchronous replication

Connections

One process per connection, usually fronted by PgBouncer, versus a thread pool in the server and routing through MaxScale

Analytics

Row storage only in core PostgreSQL, while columnar needs an extension versus ColumnStore included in MariaDB, with Exa available as an add-on for MPP analytics

Lifecycle

A major release each year, five years of support and a pg_upgrade for each major upgrade versus up to 8 years of support per MariaDB Enterprise release

MariaDB is one platform.

PostgreSQL needs a toolkit

HA comes in the box

Core PostgreSQL leaves failover to tools like Patroni and etcd. MariaDB pairs Galera Cluster with MaxScale for automatic failover and transaction replay, backed by one vendor.

Analytics and AI in one server

ColumnStore and native vector search run inside MariaDB, so there are no separate extensions to maintain for columnar data or embeddings. Exa adds MPP analytics as data grows.

An easier exit from Oracle

Moving Oracle apps to PostgreSQL means rewriting PL/SQL as PL/pgSQL. MariaDB’s SQL_MODE=ORACLE runs much of that code with few changes, shortening migration timelines.

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Read why French cloud provider Drumee chose MariaDB over PostgreSQL to run its platform.

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Frequently asked questions

It depends on the workload. MariaDB does well on high-concurrency OLTP thanks to its thread pool, and ColumnStore speeds up analytics. Benchmark with your own queries to see for yourself.

Yes. MariaDB Galera Cluster provides active-active synchronous replication, so every node accepts writes. Core PostgreSQL needs a third-party extension to provide similar functionality.

Yes. Vector data types, indexes and distance functions are built into MariaDB Server, with no extensions to install. MariaDB AI RAG and MCP Server add RAG pipelines and agent access.

If you rely on a specific extension such as PostGIS or TimescaleDB, PostgreSQL may suit you better. MariaDB has native GIS support and covers most enterprise needs in the core platform.

Tables and data move with standard tools. Most of the work is converting PL/pgSQL functions and PostgreSQL-specific data types. Our migration guide and team help you scope it the effort.

Yes. MariaDB Cloud runs on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud with autoscaling, a 99.995% SLA and a Serverless option that scales to zero. Enterprise Platform runs wherever you host it.