We are very pleased to welcome ProxySQL as a Silver Sponsor of the MariaDB Foundation.

ProxySQL is the leading proxy for MySQL and has recently focused on supporting more and more of MariaDB, both with the Proxy and with other open-source projects ProxySQL is stewarding, like dbdeployer and orchestrator.

I had the chance to interview René Cannaò, CEO of ProxySQL.

Why is it important for ProxySQL to sponsor an organization like the MariaDB Foundation?

ProxySQL was born within the MySQL ecosystem, and MariaDB has always been an important part of it. Many ProxySQL users run MariaDB Server in production, often in demanding environments where availability, routing, failover, security, and observability are critical.

For us, sponsoring the MariaDB Foundation is a way to support an open source database community that has played an important role for many years. It is also a way to make our commitment more visible: ProxySQL is not only a proxy for one specific database vendor or one specific deployment model. We want ProxySQL to remain a strong, production-grade infrastructure component for the broader MySQL-compatible ecosystem, including MariaDB.

Open source infrastructure becomes stronger when the surrounding ecosystem is healthy. Supporting the MariaDB Foundation is one way for us to contribute to that health.

What is ProxySQL expecting from such collaboration?

We see this sponsorship as the beginning of a closer relationship with the MariaDB community.

At a practical level, we hope it will help improve communication, visibility, and collaboration between ProxySQL and MariaDB users, contributors, and maintainers. We want more MariaDB users to know that ProxySQL can be part of their architecture when they need advanced traffic management, connection handling, read/write splitting, query routing, query rewriting, high availability, observability, or protection from problematic queries.

We also hope this collaboration can create more opportunities for technical feedback. Real-world users often discover edge cases, compatibility requirements, and operational patterns that are difficult to predict in isolation. A closer relationship with the MariaDB community can help us better understand those needs and continue improving ProxySQL accordingly.

We do not see this only as sponsorship in the financial sense. We see it as participation in the ecosystem.

What do you think about MariaDB Server?

MariaDB Server is an important open source database with a large user base and a long history in the MySQL-compatible ecosystem.

From our perspective, one of its strengths is that it gives users choice. Some organizations run MySQL, some run MariaDB, some run Percona Server, and some run multiple database technologies side by side. ProxySQL sits in front of these systems, so we naturally care about compatibility, operational stability, and the freedom for users to choose the database that best fits their needs.

MariaDB Server also matters because it keeps the ecosystem diverse. Diversity in open source databases is healthy: it creates innovation, prevents excessive dependency on a single vendor, and gives users more options when designing their infrastructure.

For ProxySQL, MariaDB is not a side note. It is one of the important database servers used by our community and our customers.

I get the impression that ProxySQL is becoming a key player in the open-source world—not just because of the proxy itself, but also because it’s breathing new life into projects like dbdeployer and orchestrator. Why is that? What role does MariaDB play in all of this?

ProxySQL started as a proxy, but in production environments, a proxy does not exist in isolation. It is part of a larger operational stack.

Users do not only need routing. They need testing tools, deployment tools, failover tools, observability, automation, documentation, and reliable operational patterns. Projects like dbdeployer and Orchestrator have been extremely useful to the MySQL ecosystem, and we believe they still have an important role to play.

Our interest in these projects comes from a simple observation: open source database infrastructure needs strong surrounding tools. If important tools become unmaintained or lose momentum, the whole ecosystem suffers. By helping maintain and modernize some of these projects, we are trying to support the broader community, not only ProxySQL users.

MariaDB has a natural place in this vision. It is part of the same operational universe: MySQL-compatible databases, replication, clustering, high availability, failover, testing, and traffic management. We want ProxySQL and the surrounding tooling to be useful across this ecosystem, including MariaDB Server.

In the long term, we believe the open source database world benefits from collaboration between projects rather than fragmentation. ProxySQL sponsoring the MariaDB Foundation is one more step in that direction.

Looking Ahead

As you may have noticed, ProxySQL is thrilled to join the ranks of the MariaDB Foundation’s sponsors, and we are equally excited to continue working with ProxySQL to build a stronger community through powerful, reliable tools that are compatible with MariaDB Server.

Interested in supporting the MariaDB Foundation?
Learn more about our sponsorship program and how to get involved:
https://mariadb.org/supporters/