MariaDB ships with XtraDB, Percona's modified InnoDB engine. If you're planning on using InnoDB (which just about everyone is) the differences are pretty minor

MariaDB ships with XtraDB, Percona's modified InnoDB engine. If you're planning on using InnoDB (which just about everyone is) the differences are pretty minor. The big difference is that MariaDB comes with the Aria storage engine, which is a crash safe alternative to MyISAM. http://kb.askmonty.org/en/about-xtradb/ http://kb.askmonty.org/en/about-xtradb/ http://kb.askmonty.org/en/aria-faq/ http://kb.askmonty.org/en/aria-faq/