I’m looking for suggestions on which MCP server would work best for connecting to MariaDB and MySQL databases. I plan to use this setup primarily with Roo Code for my development work.
I’ve been researching different options but there are so many choices available that I’m not sure which one would be the most reliable and efficient. Has anyone here had good experiences with specific MCP servers for this type of database connection?
I’m particularly interested in:
Performance and stability
Ease of setup and configuration
Compatibility with Roo Code environment
Any potential issues I should be aware of
Any recommendations or advice from your personal experience would be really helpful. Thanks in advance for sharing your insights!
I’ve had good results with the sqlite-mcp server which actually supports MySQL connections despite the name being misleading. Been running it for about four months now connecting to both MariaDB 10.6 and MySQL 8.0 instances without major issues. The configuration is pretty minimal compared to some alternatives I tried earlier. One thing that caught me off guard was the connection limit behavior - it defaults to a fairly conservative setting which caused bottlenecks when running multiple concurrent operations. Had to bump up the max_connections parameter in both the MCP config and database server settings to match. Also worth noting that transaction handling works well but you might need to adjust the isolation level depending on your specific use case. Regarding Roo Code compatibility, I haven’t encountered any problems since it uses standard connection protocols. The error logging is decent enough for troubleshooting connection issues when they do occur.
From my experience working with MariaDB connections, I’d recommend looking into the mysql2-mcp server rather than the standard mysql one. I switched to it about eight months ago after facing some character encoding issues with the regular mysql server when dealing with international data. The mysql2 implementation handles UTF-8 much better and has more modern authentication support. Performance has been notably better in my setup, especially for prepared statements and batch operations. Configuration is similar to other MCP servers but I found the documentation clearer. One caveat though - make sure your MariaDB server has query_cache disabled if you’re using version 10.5 or older, as I encountered some strange caching conflicts that took me days to diagnose. The server works fine with Roo Code since it implements the standard MCP protocol correctly. Connection recovery after network interruptions is also more robust compared to what I experienced with other options.
honestly ive been using the database-mcp package and its worked pretty solid for both mysql and mariadb connections. setup was straightforward tho i did run into some ssl certificate warnings initially that needed tweaking in the config. performance wise no complaints so far even with heavy queries.
The official MySQL MCP server has proven to be a reliable choice for me over the past six months. Setting it up was quite simple; you’ll mainly need to adjust the connection string and credentials in your configuration file. In terms of performance, it has handled larger datasets effectively, although I experienced some memory spikes during bulk operations at first.
An important aspect to consider is the connection pooling settings. I encountered timeout problems initially until I optimized the pool size and connection timeout values, as the defaults weren’t effective for my scenario. Additionally, ensure that your MariaDB version aligns with the server, as I faced a minor authentication issue with newer versions that required modifying the auth plugin configuration. Overall, once configured properly, integration with development environments has been seamless, and while I haven’t specifically used Roo Code, the server adheres to standard MCP protocols, which should mitigate any compatibility concerns.
tried mariadb-connector-mcp recently and its been pretty decent so far. installation was bit tricky on windows but once running its stable. havent tested with roo code yet but shouldnt be issues since it follows standard protocols.