MariaDB 13.0 Is Now Stable

MariaDB Server 13.0 is now Stable!

The 13.0 series started its journey in March 2026 with the Preview. It then progressed through the Release Candidate phase and is now ready for general use as MariaDB’s latest Stable rolling release.

This is not a long-term support release, which means that an upgrade is relevant for you in the specific scenario that you want to try one of the new features described below. In a test or production environment. But this is not an LTS.

13.0.2, Stable, is an important milestone.

The Preview introduced the features. The Stable release indicates that they have now completed the release process, undergone additional testing, and reached the maturity level required for general availability.

From Preview to Stable

When MariaDB 13.0 Preview was released, I published a detailed overview of its new functionality:

MariaDB 13.0 Preview Available: More SQL Power, Better Visibility, and More

That article covers the main additions in the series, including:

SQL and stored-program compatibility improvements
the QB_NAME() optimizer hint
richer optimizer and metadata visibility
InnoDB log archiving
Performance Schema digest changes
binary logging and replication enhancements
the configurable audit timestamp format

It also contains a complete Feature in Focus demonstration of innodb_log_archive.

There is no reason to repeat all of that here.

The features did not suddenly become different because the label changed from Preview to Stable. What changed is their maturity and the level of confidence associated with the release.

So, for the detailed technical tour, examples, and explanations, please refer to the original Preview article.

But pay attention that some features didn’t make it to the release yet, like Optimizer Trace with the optimizer statistics actually used (MDEV-38701), atomic CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE (MDEV-25292), …

More Than New Features

A Stable release is not only about making new functionality ready for general use.

MariaDB 13.0 also includes fixes for several security vulnerabilities. Independent security researchers reported many of these issues responsibly through MariaDB’s HackerOne program.

The details of security issues are not always published before fixed versions are available and users have had a reasonable opportunity to upgrade—and, for rather obvious reasons, this is not the place to turn them into tutorials.

The important point is that the release process includes considerably more than the visible features described in the Preview announcement. It also includes reviewing security reports, reproducing the reported behavior, assessing its impact, developing fixes, and validating that those fixes do not introduce regressions.

This work is less visible than a new SQL feature, but certainly not less important.

Thank you to the researchers who reported these issues responsibly, and to everyone who analyzed and fixed them.

As the corresponding vulnerabilities are publicly disclosed, MariaDB’s official security documentation will include details and CVE references.

You can also find more information in the Security Advisories.

What Does Stable Mean?

Stable does not mean that software has somehow reached perfection.

Sadly, we still have no SQL statement for that:

MAKE SERVER PERFECT;

Stable means that the release has passed through MariaDB’s development cycle and is now considered suitable for general use.

During the journey from Preview to Release Candidate and finally Stable, the focus moves progressively from introducing functionality to validating it:

new features receive broader testing
regressions are identified and corrected
interactions between features are exercised
upgrade paths are tested
packaging and platform-specific issues are addressed
feedback from early adopters is incorporated

The flashy part usually happens in the Preview.

The very important but less visible part happens afterward.

That less-visible work is what transforms an interesting development release into something users can realistically deploy in their normal environments.

Between the RC and Stable releases, the 13.0 branch received 604 additional commits, and 1,701 files were changed!

This also means 23,748 test lines were added, where 4,222 were only related to test cases (mysql-test/*/.test) and the engineers addressed 335 MDEV!

Those numbers are a useful reminder that the work between Preview and Stable is not merely changing a label. It is where early feedback becomes fixes, regressions become tests, and promising features become a release ready for general use.

The Latest Stable Rolling Release

MariaDB 13.0 is a rolling release.

Rolling releases provide access to MariaDB’s latest features and improvements on a regular cadence. They are intended for users who want to follow the evolution of MariaDB Server more closely rather than wait for the next Long-Term Support series.

This distinction is important.

Stable describes the maturity of the release.

Rolling describes its update path.

A Stable rolling release is suitable for general use, but it does not have the same extended maintenance window as an LTS release.

For environments where long-term maintenance and a slower upgrade cadence are the main priorities, the latest MariaDB LTS release remains the natural choice.

For users seeking the latest SQL capabilities, optimizer improvements, metadata, observability, and engine enhancements, MariaDB 13.0 is now the Stable series to evaluate.

What Stands Out in 13.0?

I will not reproduce the complete list from the Preview article, but the overall direction of MariaDB 13.0 is worth repeating.

This release is about making MariaDB Server:

more expressive
more observable
easier to troubleshoot
more compatible with advanced procedural SQL
more useful for database administrators
better prepared for future backup and recovery improvements

Not every improvement is a giant feature with a new logo and three conference talks.

Some additions simply expose information that was previously difficult to obtain. Others improve operations that already existed. Some remove migration friction, while others make a particular engine or replication workflow more efficient.

Together, they make the server better.

And there is another addition that is difficult to ignore: DuckDB [1][2].

MariaDB can now use DuckDB as a storage engine, bringing columnar storage and vectorized analytical execution alongside the transactional workloads handled by InnoDB.

This means that operational and analytical tables can live in the same MariaDB environment—and even be joined in a single SQL statement.

The DuckDB storage engine is now in gamma, so this is not yet something I would quietly introduce into production on a Friday afternoon… probably on a Monday… 😉

But it is a very exciting direction for lightweight analytics, reporting, HTAP experiments, and interaction with formats such as Parquet.

I already gave it a complete test drive in MariaDB + DuckDB: A New Playground for Analytics, so I invite you to read that article for the technical details.

MariaDB Server has many storage engines.

Now one of them quacks.

# dnf info MariaDB-duckdb-engine.x86_64
Last metadata expiration check: 1:17:17 ago on Wed Sep 16 07:02:48 2026.
Available Packages
Name         : MariaDB-duckdb-engine
Version      : 13.0.2
Release      : 1.el9
Architecture : x86_64
Size         : 15 M
Source       : MariaDB-duckdb-engine-13.0.2-1.el9.src.rpm
Repository   : mariadb
Summary      : DuckDB storage engine for MariaDB server
URL          : http://mariadb.org
License      : GPLv2
Description  : The MariaDB DuckDB storage
             : engine embeds DuckDB as a pluggable storage engine, enabling fast analytical
             : (OLAP) query processing directly inside MariaDB.

Should You Upgrade?

Now that MariaDB 13.0 is Stable, it becomes a realistic upgrade candidate—but the usual rules still apply. The fact that a release is Stable means it is ready for general use. It does not mean that your application has already tested itself against it.

Feature in Focus: MariaDB, S

Time to Try MariaDB 13.0

MariaDB 13.0 has completed its journey from Preview to Stable.

The technical details and examples remain available in my original MariaDB 13.0 Preview article, while the official release notes and changelog provide the complete list of changes and fixes included throughout the series.

Now is the right time to download it, test it with your applications, verify your workloads, and explore the improvements introduced in this release.

And when you find a problem, please report it to MariaDB’s Jira.

We can address problems in MariaDB somewhat faster when they are reported to MariaDB rather than elsewhere. 😉

Congratulations and thank you to everyone involved in the release.

Happy upgrading, and enjoy MariaDB!