MariaDB 12.1 Changes & Improvements

An overview of changes, improvements, and what's new in MariaDB Community Server 12.1

The most recent release of MariaDB 12.1 is:

MariaDB 12.1.2 GA Download Now

_{Alternate download from mariadb.org}

MariaDB 12.1 is a rolling release. It is an evolution of MariaDB 12.0 with several entirely new features.

New Features

Performance improvements

• Segmented key cache for Aria storage engine (MDEV-24)

  • The new aria_pagecache_segments system variable defines how many segments are used, default is 1, maximum 128

• MDL scalability improvements (MDEV-19749)

• Asynchronous replication between two Galera Clusters can now use parallel replication

  • This is managed by the new wsrep_applier_retry_count system variable (MDEV-20065)

• The audit plugin now supports buffered logging

  • The size of the buffer is defined using the new system variable server_audit_file_buffer_size (MDEV-34680)

• Faster vector distance calculations via extrapolation (MDEV-36205)

Compatibility features

• New authentication plugin caching_sha2_password for MySQL compatibility (MDEV-9804)

• ( + ) for outer join syntax in Oracle mode (MDEV-13817)

• Associative arrays: DECLARE TYPE .. TABLE OF .. INDEX BY (MDEV-34319) (blog post)

• DROP USER will now by default issue a warning if the user has active sessions, or fail in Oracle mode (MDEV-35617)

Optimizer

• Optimizations for GROUP/ORDER BY can make use of indexes on virtual columns (MDEV-36132)

• Include definitions of tables and views in the optimizer trace (MDEV-36483)

  • optimizer_record_context system variable.

Optimizer hints

• Optimizer hints: [NO_]JOIN_INDEX, [NO_]GROUP_INDEX, [NO_]ORDER_INDEX, [NO_]INDEX (MDEV-35856)

• Optimizer hints: [NO_]SPLIT_MATERIALIZED (MDEV-36092)

• Optimizer hints: [NO_]DERIVED_CONDITION_PUSHDOWN, [NO_]MERGE (MDEV-36106)

Miscellaneous

• Retry applying of write sets on Galera nodes (MDEV-36077)

  • Controlled through the wsrep_applier_retry_count system variable

• mariadb-dump now supports wildcards with the -L or --wildcards option (MDEV-21376)

• Foreign key constraint names no longer need to be unique per database, only per table (MDEV-28933) (blog post)

Development release only

This feature was only available in the 12.1 development releases, and will be implemented in a later series.

• Add semisynchronous replication variable, rpl_semi_sync_master_wait_for_slave_count (MDEV-18983)

List of All MariaDB 12.1 Releases

Date	Release	Status	Release Notes	Changelog
18 Nov 2025	MariaDB 12.1.2	GA	Release Notes	Changelog
7 Aug 2025	MariaDB 12.1.1	RC	Release Notes	Changelog
26 June 2025	MariaDB 12.1.0	Preview

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