On Brazil’s MySQL landscape. Q&A with Vinicius Grippa
“Next year, we will be celebrating 10 years of the community“
Q1. Looking at the themes presented at MySQL BR Conf 2025—from high availability implementations to modern data architectures and AI integration—what do these topics tell us about the current maturity level of MySQL adoption in Brazilian enterprises, and how does Brazil’s MySQL landscape compare to other markets you’ve observed globally?
I believe that the Brazilian market is at the same level as others when using MySQL technology, which means that the most advanced features are still reserved for a niche of users only.
For example, a good part of companies are still using classical replication, which is great, but we have InnoDB Cluster and Galera Cluster nowadays as well. Features like LDAP, REST, and OIDC are still unknown and not used by a good portion of users. The AI trend already reached our lands, and see a lot of interest into this, but from my perspective, people and companies are still trying to figure out how to benefit from the AI wave.
However, it was great to see that in this conference many people had the chance to get in contact with other products available in the ecosystem, such as ProxySQL, Readyset, and Oracle OCI features such as GenAI. There was great interest in that, and I think many took a lot of ideas to apply back home. It is also interesting to see that almost everyone I spoke with is using different database technologies along with MySQL. It is definitely proof that the market is consolidating to a multi-database ecosystem.
Q2. Several presentations at the conference addressed scalability challenges and cost optimization (like the TiDB migration case from Bling with 25TB of data, and intelligent caching solutions). What are the primary business drivers pushing Brazilian organizations to reevaluate their MySQL infrastructure, and at what scale or growth stage do companies typically face these critical decision points?
The Brazilian economy has an inflation component that heavily impacts profits. Also, our currency is undervalued compared to the dollar, which is the reference for the industry and cloud providers. This means that every penny matters here.
Optimizing infrastructure and operations is key to keeping costs stable while expanding revenue and business. Solutions that can offer this are in great demand here in Brazil due to these factors.
Furthermore, I also observed a demand for automation and infrastructure flexibility, aiming to free up DBAs and sysadmins to perform more important and urgent tasks rather than just maintaining database operations.
From my point of view, even at a small scale, it is important to optimize your operation with tools and technologies that can help. The fact that most of these tools are open source gives users the ability to explore them better and gain maturity.
Q3. The conference featured real-world case studies from major Brazilian companies like Natura and iColabora using MySQL HeatWave. What patterns are you seeing in terms of which Brazilian industries or business segments are leading MySQL adoption and modernization, and what specific business outcomes are they achieving that resonate most with other organizations considering similar investments?
I also attended the Oracle AI Conference, and this AI trend is everywhere. As I said, I think we are still trying to figure out the commercial use of AI. Most initiatives I see people working on involve AI agents, RAG, and customer support.
As a consumer, I have had both the pleasure and displeasure of dealing with AI agents. When they are not properly configured, they are annoying to talk to. For example, they can find your order but cannot take any actions or provide further context, which turns the experience into a terrible one. So, I think this is just the beginning of the AI era.
As for the local Brazilian market, Oracle is leading with HeatWave since the MySQL Community version lacks decent support for AI. I know banks and educational companies are experimenting with it, along with the ones mentioned in the conference like Natura.
Q4. With the conference celebrating MySQL’s 30th anniversary and attracting participants from across the country, how would you characterize the strength and evolution of the MySQL community in Brazil? How does community engagement translate into business value—whether through knowledge sharing, talent availability, or organizational confidence in MySQL as a strategic platform?
I’m very happy with how the MySQL Brazilian community has been evolving. We have seen the number of participants growing year after year since 2023, when we started promoting these events. MySQL has very strong usage here in Brazil, but the community is much smaller when compared to the Postgres community, for example. Our idea is to grow this number and get to know better everyone that has been using MySQL here in Brazil.
Next year, we will be celebrating 10 years of the community, and we have a few ideas to promote MySQL with smaller meetup events and a big one at the end of the year.
As for business value, in these events, we see different levels of professionals participating and interested in it. We see DBAs, sysadmins, devs, managers, and even directors. It promotes strong networking, which is great and helps them see the latest news about the ecosystem. I also heard that some of these events turned into leads for the sponsors as well, which is great.
Many may mention that Postgres has been gaining a lot of attention—more than MySQL. I believe competition is great, and these are two open source databases. As a DBA, if you know both, you are in a perfect spot in the market; and for a company, you have two great products that allow you to experiment and find the best use cases for each.
Q5. Based on the diverse range of presentations—from security and operational stability to GenAI/RAG implementations and global career opportunities—what do you see as the biggest gaps or opportunities for MySQL adoption in Brazil over the next 2-3 years? Are there particular business challenges or market conditions unique to Brazil that will shape how organizations approach their MySQL strategies?
MySQL has a reputation already established in Brazil, for better or worse. There are still a few companies that remember MySQL from the old days of MyISAM, and they don’t consider MySQL strong enough to run more critical applications. Meanwhile, there are others experimenting with modern solutions combining Readyset, ProxySQL, and MySQL.
The goal is to break these preconceptions and bring the latest updates about the ecosystem so users and companies can make decisions based on what is currently available.
The challenge, I think, remains the same: keeping costs under control in a challenging economy. One factor that might influence companies regarding MySQL is Oracle’s approach, which is centered much more on OCI rather than the open source ecosystem. There are discussions about this, and it is hard to predict how this will shift the ecosystem.
QX. Anything else you wish to add?
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here once again. I also want to say that we have plans for 2026, and if anyone is willing to participate in the Brazilian event or contribute in some way, feel free to reach out.
Our conference will be in the second semester (date is yet to be defined); if you are willing to join, please let me know! Happy New Year and a great 2026 of MySQL to everyone!
Resources
BOOK Learning MySQL, 2nd Edition by Vinicius M. Grippa, Sergey Kuzmichev.
MySQL Events & Conferences 2026
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Vinicius Grippa is a Lead Database Engineer at Percona, Oracle ACE Director, and co-author of Learning MySQL. With 18 years of experience, he specializes in MySQL and MongoDB for mission-critical systems. He leads Brazil’s MySQL User Group and regularly speaks at global tech events like FOSDEM and Percona Live.
Sponsored by MySQL/Oracle.