Can you do RAG with Full Text Search in MariaDB?

We continue our blog series on learning more about users of MariaDB. Searching LinkedIn for posts about MariaDB this morning we saw an impressive confident post about using MariaDB in a RAG solution named SemantiQ. We got curious about it and reached out to the author Lorenzo Cremonese to have a chat.

Lorenzo’s post on LinkedIn

Tell us about yourself Lorenzo! 

I’m an Italian studying in Spain. I began programming when I was 14, and I’m now 22. I’m a self-taught web developer since 3-4 years ago, and I’m now doing a two year University education in Spain focused on web development at the institute IES ENRIC VALOR, in Pego. 

Scarf Joins as Gold Sponsor of the MariaDB Foundation

We are thrilled to welcome Scarf as a Gold Sponsor of the MariaDB Foundation!

Scarf’s commitment to improving open source distribution and visibility aligns closely with our mission to ensure the continued openness, innovation, and sustainability of MariaDB Server. As a platform that helps open-source projects understand and grow their user base, Scarf brings unique value to the ecosystem—not just through sponsorship, but through actionable insights that benefit the broader community.

For the MariaDB Foundation, understanding who uses MariaDB—and how, where, and why—is key to making better decisions. Scarf’s privacy conscious analytics help us move beyond assumptions and anecdotes, giving us real-world data to guide our outreach, improve our documentation, tailor our events, and strengthen our developer ecosystem.

Why Swiss eCommerce Leader Glarotech Migrated from MySQL to MariaDB – and What’s Next for PepperShop

In our mission to grow MariaDB adoption, we’re always eager to spotlight the journeys of real-world users – especially those who’ve made thoughtful, strategic choices. Thanks to long-time MariaDB consultant and community champion Oli Sennhauser, we got a chance to sit down with one of his clients: Swiss eCommerce provider Glarotech of the PepperShop platform, and their founder Roland Brühwiler.

When Swiss eCommerce platform provider Glarotech started over 20 years ago, it was a small university project with three people. Today, it has grown to 30 employees and thousands of eCommerce clients – but many of their early choices still echo through their technology stack.

MariaDB 11.8 LTS Released

Now is a good time to upgrade to the freshest MariaDB Server. MariaDB 11.8 is the yearly long term support release for 2025. It’s the first LTS with support for MariaDB Vector, and it includes a number of other updates based on user requests. You can seamlessly upgrade to MariaDB 11.8 from MariaDB 11.4 (the previous LTS) or any older release, back to MariaDB Server 10.0 or earlier, including most versions of MySQL Server.

MariaDB 11.8 LTS includes everything added since 11.4, incorporating changes from 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, as well as new features not released before.

Youtube Semantic Search is the winner of MariaDB AI RAG Hackathon innovation track

Last week we announced the winners of  the MariaDB AI RAG hackathon that we organized together with the Helsinki Python meetup group. Now is time to go for a deep dive into the innovation track winner. Dymtro Abramov put together an end to end RAG application for making technical meetup videos searchable with semantic relevance (based on their caption texts). We were impressed by the idea and the implementation that is definitely beyond just a proof of concept for AI RAG with MariaDB Vector.

Dmytro, tell us about yourself and why you decided to join the Hackathon?

Model Context Protocol – MCP is the winner of the MariaDB AI RAG Hackathon integration track

We recently announced the winners of  the MariaDB AI RAG hackathon that we organized together with the Helsinki Python meetup group. Let’s deep dive into the integration track winner. David Ramos chose to contribute a MariaDB integration for MCP Server. MariaDB plc was impressed by the results and has picked it up for further development with more features. 

David, tell us about yourself and why you decided to join the Hackathon?

I am an aspiring Data Scientist from Colombia. I studied Physics in college, but by the time I graduated, I realized what I enjoyed the most was working with data and programming, so I decided to make the shift to Data Science.

Helsinki Python Hackathon –  a role model for future MariaDB hackathons!

One of the most fun and rewarding activities the past two-three months has been working with the participants in the Helsinki Python hackathon on MariaDB Vector. Robert already blogged about the outcome and the award winners. Let me reflect a bit more on the entire process, as it has inspired us to do more of the same: Scaling out from Finland to other hackathons.

The goal: MariaDB Vector contributions

Our goal was to solicit contributions related to MariaDB Vector, but we didn’t have precise ideas about exactly what type of contributions or how we should arrange the hackathon. 

Helsinki Python meetup with AI RAG and MariaDB Foundation

The Helsinki Python meetup on Tuesday 27th May was hosted by MariaDB Foundation with nearly 100 participants of the 2600+ members of the Helsinki python meetup community. 

In addition to being a successful opportunity to mingle and learn python together, we finally got to announce the winners of the MariaDB AI RAG Hackathon! (winners posing in the feature photo of the blog)

Presentations: AI and MariaDB

We welcomed participants of the meetup with a brief introduction to what MariaDB is as a software, and the sponsoring parties: MariaDB Foundation, Open Ocean Capital and verkkokauppa.com