MariaDB 13.0 has officially reached Stable status with the release of version 13.0.2, bringing several new SQL, InnoDB, optimizer, and replication improvements to the open-source database server.
One of the headline additions is support for UPDATE ... RETURNING for single-table updates, allowing applications to retrieve changed values directly without issuing a separate SELECT.
The release also introduces atomic CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE, while Optimizer Trace can now show which statistics were actually used when building a query execution plan.
On the InnoDB side, MariaDB 13.0 adds log archiving with the new innodb_log_archive option. The feature targets point-in-time recovery and incremental backup workflows, although MariaDB notes mariadb-backup does not yet support it directly.
Query optimization gains the new QB_NAME() hint for identifying and targeting individual query blocks. Plus, INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SYSTEM_VARIABLES can now show whether a variable is deprecated and its suggested replacement.
Other changes include faster unique indexes on CHAR columns in MEMORY tables, switching to XXH3_128 hashing in Performance Schema, and a higher default for binlog_row_event_max_size.
MariaDB 13.0 also continues the project’s work on DuckDB integration as a pluggable storage engine, combining MariaDB’s transactional workloads with DuckDB’s columnar analytical capabilities. The DuckDB engine is still considered experimental and is currently classified as gamma.
For more details, see the announcement or the release notes.
