This article announces Amazon RDS support for MariaDB 10.11, the latest long-term supported version, delivering up to 40% higher transaction throughput compared to MariaDB 10.6.

• Write throughput improved 47.25% at 512 threads; read throughput improved 15.13%
• Lag-free ALTER TABLE replication minimizes replication delays during schema changes
• GRANT TO PUBLIC command streamlines privilege management for all users
• New JSON functions: JSON_EQUALS, JSON_NORMALIZE, JSON_OVERLAPS for flexible JSON handling
• SFORMAT function enables custom text formatting for reports and structured output
• ANALYZE FORMAT=JSON provides detailed query performance metrics and optimization insights
• Natural sort order function treats numeric portions as numbers for intuitive sorting
• Upgrade via Blue/Green Deployments minimizes downtime and risk during migration

MariaDB 10.11 offers significant performance gains and new features for improved database operations, JSON handling, and query analysis, with safe upgrade paths available.