Support

While we do support MariaDB (it's almost the same as MySQL) please note that you will have a few issues with Joomla! and all of its extensions:

• You must NOT use the Aria or XtraDB database engines. They have subtle differences to MyISAM and and InnoDB which will cause issues with Joomla! and its extensions. Based on our experience, we recommend setting the MyISAM engine as the default (talk to your host about it). Never convert MyISAM tables to Aria or XtraDB, you'll break Joomla!.
• Joomla! 3.5 and later support the multibyte Unicode encoding UTF8MB4. While it's being presented as a gimmick which enables you to use Emojis it is, in fact, a MAJOR security enhancement. Had it been implemented a year ago when I first discussed this with the Joomla! maintainers the last zero day attack on Joomla! in December 2015 would have been averted. To the best of my knowledge MariaDB does NOT support this encoding or at least Joomla! on MariaDB doesn't. Therefore using MariaDB may expose you to a class of Unicode attacks which cannot be mitigated in any other way (including through Admin Tools). Also note that even though Admin Tools does offer a feature to convert your site to UTF8MB4 it will not work on MariaDB (it only works on MySQL).

Further to that some of the MySQL-only features in Admin Tools (Repair & Optimize, optimize session table, change collation) may not work on MariaDB. It depends on the database engine used by each table. We've tested MyISAM and InnoDB on MariaDB because these are the only database storage engines supported by Joomla!. These two engines DO work just fine with Admin Tools, Akeeba Backup and all of our other extensions.

You're welcome!