We are happy to announce that coming in Q3 of 2024, with the release of cPanel & WHM v122, MariaDB Server will become the default database for new installations of cPanel. Our collaboration with the MariaDB Foundation is based on shared values and the desire to best serve the hosting community, with the primary reasons for this change being overall stability, performance, and long-term support.
Additionally, this reflects our commitment to ensuring a server’s lifecycle predictability in order to maintain the highest possible performance of any cPanel server. When it comes to providing a dependable and reliable hosting environment, this alignment between cPanel and MariaDB just makes good sense.
By announcing this far in advance and providing such a significant runway, we are also ensuring that the transition itself will be a smooth one.
It is important to also note that our support for MySQL is not going away by any means. Although new cPanel installs will utilize MariaDB by default, all pre-existing installs will remain unchanged, and even new users will have the option of electing to use MySQL should they prefer to.
You can find more information about this partnership on MariaDB’s blog: https://mariadb.org/mariadb-default-in-cpanel
Keep an eye out for more updates and new documentation soon.
