[PrimeDirective]

The author mentioned MariaDB in the intro and the went on about MySQL, not sure which he actually used.

I think the latest recommendation for MySQL was utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci and utf8mb4_general_ci for MariaDB.

While I agree about the Postgres recommendation, it's a non-starter in the PHP world, unless doing something from scratch. Even then, the support for MySQL/MariaDB is much better.

[timw4mail]

What's that mean, non-starter in the PHP world? Postgres is well supported by frameworks and libraries in PHP, not to mention PHP itself.

[PrimeDirective]

For one, it's out of reach for lots of folks who use shared hosting services, where there's a managed LAMP stack. It's rare if they have Postgres. If you use AWS, of course, everything is up to you. There's also a connection pooling and different startup for MySQL/Mariadb vs Postgres. PHP engine generates the page and closes itself and connections. Postgres assumes you are more persistent. Also, there's a difference in how GROUP BY works in MySQL/Mariadb vs Postgres, and wrapping your head around it, after using it the MySQL way for years, can take time. So not a drop-in replacement.

[isotopp]

ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY is the default in MySQL since 5.7.5.