MariaDB

MariaDB is the community-led fork of MySQL, and AddisDB treats it as its own engine rather than making you pretend it is MySQL. It shares the MySQL driver, so you get the same schema browsing, in-grid editing, live monitoring and mock data.

Who it is for

MariaDB is what you want if you like MySQL’s ubiquity but prefer a fully open governance model. It is the default MySQL-compatible database on most Linux distributions, ships storage engines MySQL does not (Aria, ColumnStore, Spider), and has stayed a drop-in replacement for the overwhelming majority of applications.

It has also grown features on its own line: real sequences, INVISIBLE columns, system-versioned tables that keep their own history, and a JSON type implemented as a checked LONGTEXT rather than a distinct binary format.

Pick it for self-hosted deployments, for distro-managed servers where it is already the packaged default, or when you want to avoid a single-vendor roadmap.

Set up the server

1. Local: brew install mariadb on macOS, apt install mariadb-server on Debian/Ubuntu, or docker run mariadb.
2. Run mysql_secure_installation (it ships with MariaDB too) to set the root password and drop the anonymous accounts.
3. On Debian and Ubuntu, the root account authenticates through the unix_socket plugin, not a password — so it will never log in from AddisDB. Create a normal password account instead.
4. Managed: SkySQL, Amazon RDS for MariaDB, or your distro’s cloud image. Copy the host and port from the console and allowlist your IP.
5. Create a dedicated user for AddisDB rather than connecting as root.

CREATE USER 'addisdb'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'a-strong-password';
GRANT SELECT, SHOW VIEW ON app.* TO 'addisdb'@'%';
GRANT PROCESS ON *.* TO 'addisdb'@'%';

Connect from AddisDB

1. New Connection → MariaDB under Relational / SQL. Port prefills to 3306.
2. Fill host, port, database, username and password — or paste a connection URL and click Fill fields.
3. Set SSL mode to require for anything remote.
4. Test, then Save.

Homebrew-installed MariaDB servers appear in the Local server field, so you can start and stop them without leaving the app.

Where it stops being a drop-in

MariaDB and MySQL have been diverging since 10.x, and the differences show up exactly when you are copying SQL between them.

• Version numbers do not line up — MariaDB 10.6 is not "MySQL 10.6", and a tool that version-sniffs can guess wrong.
• JSON is a LONGTEXT alias with a check constraint, so MySQL’s binary JSON functions do not all have equivalents.
• MariaDB has CREATE SEQUENCE; MySQL does not. Schema copied the other way will fail on it.
• Replication formats and GTIDs differ enough that mixed replication between the two is not supported.

When a statement is rejected, hand the error to the AI in the chat pane — it rewrites for the dialect you are actually connected to.

What AddisDB gives you

• The full schema diagram with foreign-key layout and saved views.
• In-grid editing of cells and rows behind the Edit toggle.
• Live Monitor with active queries, blocking, locks and the flight recorder.
• AI-generated mock data, tracked and removable.
• Schema diff between two servers, or against a Drizzle / Prisma schema.
• ⌘K search across every object in every connected database.