Is MySQL dying? A January 2026 snapshot of MySQL and MariaDB
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Lately I have been seeing people ask whether MySQL is dying. Commits on GitHub have slowed down, Oracle did layoffs, and the mood around the project feels uneasy.
My first reaction was, “it is not going to die just because commits are not landing on GitHub.” But then again, it is Oracle, so the anxiety does not feel entirely irrational. I also realized I had not checked in on MariaDB, the fork, in a while.
So I decided to organize the situation as of January 2026.
Why People Are Saying “MySQL Is Dying”
GitHub commits have dropped sharply
The mysql/mysql-server repository has seen a major decline in commit volume.
- 2010: about 22,360 commits
- 2024: about 4,730 commits
- Since September 2025: more than three months without commits
In 2025, the repository recorded its lowest commit count since the project’s earliest years around 2000 to 2001.
Oracle carried out large layoffs
In September 2025, an estimated 60% to 70% of the MySQL core development team was laid off. MySQL founder Monty Widenius commented that he was “heartbroken.”
The contributor count also fell from a peak of 198 people in Q3 2006 to around 75 in Q3 2025. That is even lower than the 82 contributors at the time of Oracle’s acquisition in 2010.
The “It Is Not That Bad” Argument
It is still ranked number two globally
In the DB-Engines ranking, MySQL remains number two in the world, behind Oracle Database. Its position as “the most widely used web database” has not disappeared. WordPress still depends on MySQL, and software at that scale does not simply vanish overnight.
There is a migration path to MySQL 8.4 LTS
MySQL 8.0 reaches end of life in April 2026, but MySQL 8.4 LTS is already available. Oracle has announced a two-track model with Innovation releases and LTS releases, so the situation is not “support ends and everything is abandoned.”
Companies are maintaining their own forks
PlanetScale CEO Sam Lambert said that MySQL is foundational infrastructure for the web, supports millions of products, and that PlanetScale maintains its own fork and will keep supporting MySQL.
But It Is Still Oracle
The “boiling frog” concern
Percona co-founder Peter Zaitsev compared Oracle’s handling of MySQL to a boiling frog.
Oracle has been gradually moving features to cloud and enterprise editions while reducing staff. That is not good for the community. MySQL’s potential is not being fully realized.
Enterprise feature lock-in
There is a real feature gap between the Community and Enterprise editions.
| Feature | Community | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Thread pooling | x | o |
| Key management plugins | x | o |
| Advanced auditing | x | o |
MariaDB offers comparable capabilities in its open-source edition, which naturally raises the question of what “open source” is supposed to mean here.
The January 2026 community meeting
On January 14, developers gathered in San Francisco to discuss MySQL’s future.
The main question was whether to keep leaving MySQL entirely in Oracle’s hands or to create a fork. Two possible paths came up:
- Hard fork: a full divergence like MariaDB
- Tracking fork: something like Percona Server for MySQL, which keeps following upstream while adding features
According to Zaitsev, tracking forks preserve MySQL compatibility better. MariaDB is a hard fork, so compatibility has gradually drifted.
Oracle representatives also attended the meeting. Zaitsev commented that showing up to a venue where they knew they would not be loved was at least worth some credit.
What About MariaDB?
Company situation
- 2023: completed an IPO
- 2024: acquired by K1 Investment Management and taken private
- Leadership changed to a new CEO
MariaDB Foundation says the project will remain free and open source under GPL v2.
Development is still active
Current supported LTS releases:
- MariaDB 11.8
- MariaDB 11.4
- MariaDB 10.11
- MariaDB 10.6, with end of life in July 2026
From 12.3, expected in Q2 2026, the LTS operating model is planned to change.
Compatibility with MySQL
Because MariaDB is a hard fork, compatibility with MySQL has gradually drifted. On the other hand, MariaDB is stronger when it comes to Oracle Database compatibility, with features like sequences and PL/SQL-like syntax.
Cloud support
- AWS RDS: already supports MariaDB 11.8.5
- Azure: Azure Database for MariaDB has been deprecated, and Microsoft recommends migrating to MySQL Flexible Server
The Azure deprecation is a quiet but meaningful hit.
Security track record
CVE counts in 2025:
- MySQL: 123 CVEs, of which 117 were MySQL-specific
- MariaDB: 8 CVEs
At first glance, MariaDB looks safer. But the comparison is not that simple. A high number of MySQL-specific CVEs can also mean Oracle is aggressively disclosing and patching security issues.
So Where Does That Leave Things?
| Perspective | MySQL | MariaDB |
|---|---|---|
| Market share | Number two globally, overwhelmingly large | Used by 75% of the Fortune 500 |
| Development activity | Slowing down | Ongoing |
| Open-source posture | Some feature lock-in | Full-featured OSS |
| Corporate backing | Oracle, which feels unstable | K1-owned, which is still an unknown |
| MySQL compatibility | Upstream itself | Gradually diverging |
It is true that “MySQL does not die just because GitHub commits slow down.” It is still number two in the world, and 8.4 LTS exists.
At the same time, Oracle’s posture has clearly pulled back. The fact that the community is moving is itself a sign of that anxiety.
MariaDB is still under active development, but being acquired by private equity creates a different kind of uncertainty. They say they will maintain open source, but nobody really knows how that will look under PE ownership over the long term.
So my honest answer is: both options feel a little worrying.
For a new project, PostgreSQL may be the safer default. If you already have a large MySQL estate, the practical path is probably to move toward 8.4 LTS while keeping a close eye on where the community goes next.