The MariaDB Foundation has announced that MariaDB Server 11.8 will be a long-term support release.
MariaDB 11.8 is LTS
Confirming what you probably already expected: MariaDB Server 11.8 will be a long-term support release.
Now a Release Candidate – GA in May
With MariaDB Vector as the lead new feature, MariaDB 11.8 succeeds the previous LTS MariaDB 11.4 from a year ago.
As of now, MariaDB 11.8 is at the Release Candidate stage, with GA planned for May.
Lots of new features since MariaDB 11.4
MariaDB 11.8 has about 60 features, large and small, on top of the previous LTS, MariaDB 11.4. At our recent MariaDB Day on 1 Feb 2025 in Brussels, MariaDB Corporation Chief Architect Sergei Golubchik gave an overview of 11.8. I suggest you browse his slides and/or listen to his 31 minutes long presentation on YouTube. Eight highlights:
- Vector Search
- Optimiser improvements
- Duration of TIMESTAMP fields increased from 2038 (13 years from now) to 2106 (81 years from now)
- Compatibility improved with MySQL, with Oracle Database, and with the SQL standard
- UUID v4 and v7 added
- Security improvements such as a PARSEC authentication plugin
- Improvements to backup and replication
- Ease of use features for convenience
