MariaDB is in most aspects identical to MySQL. Differences between MySQL and MariaDB can be found at: http://askmonty.org/wiki/index.php/MariaDB_versus_MySQL The MariaDB references manual can be found at: http://askmonty.org/wiki/index.php/Manual The MySQL Reference Manual is available in various formats on http://dev.mysql.com/doc; if you're interested in the DocBook XML sources go to http://svn.mysql.com.