I'm running Mysql in production today but are planning to switch to either MariaDB or Percona server when I move to new servers. The main reason for the switch is to distance us from Oracle, but also to get better performance and new features.
It looks like Percona server and MariaDB is pretty similar, and they also promote each other's solutions. What would you say is the main difference between them?
Percona Server with XtraDB is the closest to the official MySQL Enterprise releases from Oracle. It is more conservative than MariaDB, which includes extra storage engines and more far-reaching code changes. (MariaDB is also built on the Percona XtraDB storage engine, but adds more changes to the rest of the MySQL server.)
You should check out comparison results at http://vbtechsupport.com/606/ and http://vbtechsupport.com/657/