Performance comparison between NewSQL and SQL : Sharded TiDB vs MariaDB

Abstract: Databases are used extensively for websites and a large amount of websites are built upon Wordpress. Wordpress uses MySQL compatible databases and for many larger websites itcan be imperative to have the best possible performance. Recently, NewSQL databases have been appearing that combine the features of NoSQL databases with SQL compatibility and ACID compliance that is usually not found in NoSQL databases. Due to their recency, thereis a knowledge gap in the literature regarding NewSQL databases. Therefore, this work compares the performance of the NewSQL database TiDB against the SQL database MariaDB in a performance benchmark. The benchmark includes three testing approaches with an aim of testing multiple performance aspects. These include load testing, complex queries and performance in a realistic environment. Results from this thesis show that TiDB achieves better average response time for complex queries and in load testing where the databases and load is large but gets worse results for simple queries and small datasets. MariaDB performs better when used with a web server andwith tests that involve write-operations.