Developer Argues It's Time to Stop Using MySQL in 2026
Otto Kekäläinen, former CEO of MariaDB Foundation and ex-Amazon RDS manager for MySQL/MariaDB services, makes the case for migrating from MySQL to MariaDB in 2026. He cites four key concerns: MySQL's closed development process despite GPL licensing, six years without a major version release, performance regressions in newer versions (MySQL 9.5 showing 15% less throughput than 8.0), and security transparency issues with 123 CVEs published in 2025 versus MariaDB's 8.
The author argues that while MySQL development happens "behind closed doors" with poor contribution reception, MariaDB offers transparent GitHub workflows and backward compatibility for easy LAMP stack migrations. The piece references industry figures like Mark Callaghan and Peter Zaitsev while acknowledging MySQL's continued widespread use, presenting this as an informed opinion rather than definitive technical guidance for database selection decisions.