tldr: mysql is getting worse for small, in memory workloads with low concurrency.<p>for the average medium to high traffic mysql install, i find 5.7 to be much faster than 5.6 or mariadb where concurrency and varying workloads prevail.<p>ymmv, do your own testing to see which db is a good platform for your specific workload. maybe it's mysql 5.6 maybe it's mariadb, maybe it's postgres.<p>for me mysql 5.7 brings much awaited niceness, saner defaults and even though not all workloads are better on it i think oracle is really trying to iterate. likely they will fix this regression and there would be little reason to use it over 5.6 or older.