Editing Portal:Databases (section)

=== MariaDB ===

'''MariaDB''' later emerged as a MySQL-compatible database system after changes in MySQL’s ownership and ecosystem. Perl applications often continued using MySQL-compatible interfaces, but Perl also gained a dedicated MariaDB driver.

`DBD::MariaDB` is described as the Perl5 DBI driver for MariaDB and MySQL databases. It provides an interface between Perl and the MariaDB/MySQL programming API.<ref>MetaCPAN, “DBD::MariaDB,” https://metacpan.org/pod/DBD%3A%3AMariaDB, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref> The existence of a MariaDB-specific DBD matters because MariaDB and MySQL have diverged over time in features, client libraries, authentication behavior, and packaging. For modern Perl applications, using the MariaDB-specific driver can be cleaner than treating every MariaDB installation as if it were only “MySQL.”

MariaDB is significant in Perl history because many older Perl/MySQL applications were later moved to MariaDB without a full rewrite. This preserved Perl’s usefulness in legacy modernization: old Perl applications could often be kept alive, containerized, patched, and migrated to newer database servers.