For years, relational databases and document databases were presented as competing technologies. Looking back, that debate feels surprisingly outdated. The real winner wasn’t SQL or JSON – it was the combination of both.
Read more Why Every Modern Database Is Becoming a JSON Database
After more than a decade of working with semi-structured data in relational databases, I’ve seen the full evolution of JSON support in MySQL and MariaDB. What started as a workaround has now become a robust, production-ready feature in both systems.
MariaDB emerged in 2009 as a fork of MySQL to maintain an independent, fully open-source database system. Over the years, it has diverged from MySQL, offering unique storage engines and flexible configuration options, making it suitable for everything from transactional systems to analytical workloads.
