MariaDB is a company that develops and provides an open-source cloud-native relational database solution. Known for its MariaDB Server and MariaDB Enterprise offerings, it delivers high availability, auto-failover capabilities, and supports both transactional and analytical workloads. MariaDB is favored for its flexibility, cost-effectiveness compared to proprietary databases, and support for various data models, including relational and JSON. It is widely used in Linux distributions as a replacement for MySQL and is popular among developers for its open-source innovation and ease of use.