Upgrading from mysql 5.7 on FreeBSD to mariadb or MySQL8

Question

I am looking into upgrading some major components of a webserver (php, apache, mysql).

I've done the update to 5.7 from 5.6. I've updated to php7.3.

What I wonder now is: I see that a mysql community edition is available (version 8). After a first install it failed to start so I rolled back to 5.7. Now I'm wondering if it's worth the trouble migrating to mysql8 or even if I better would update to mariadb. And in the latter: which version of mariadb would I use or which one corresponds with mysql5.7 which I currently have installed.

Is mariadb/mysql8 stable?

For clarity. This is a production server. I'm not looking for new fancy features. But perhaps some more recent versions have better performance.

Thanks a lot in advance!

• Raymond Nijland: MySQL 8.0 and MySQL 5.7 benchmarks

Answer 1

Any version declared "GA" is "good".

5.7 is only one major version behind what Oracle is providing. There have been a lot of improvements in 8.0, but, as with any upgrade, you may or may not be affected.

MariaDB 10.3 is a good parallel to 5.7, but there could be differences -- in features and in Optimizations.

It is good that you are eager to upgrade, but since you had troubles with 8.0, I think it is reasonable to stay with 5.7 for a while. (Some people are struggling with upgrading from 5.5 or even older versions!)

• th3penguinwhisperer: Thank you very much for clarifying. The version jump from 5.7 to 8 made me think I was still in the stone age :) I should have mentioned that it's almost entirely Wordpress sites so I don't expect any/very little trouble there (I don't think they use special features and it'll probably have been tested with mariadb as well). Perhaps a bit off topic: might it be possible to go straight from mysql 5.7 to mariadb 10.3 and after that upgrade mariadb?
• Rick James: @th3penguinwhisperer - Version numbers sometimes happen for marketing reasons. 6.0 was started a decade ago, then abandoned. I don't know why 7.0 was skipped. 8.0 has enough major internal changes to be not simply 5.8.