ProxySQL 3.0.6 was recently released, along with a new multi-tier release strategy. The Stable Tier focuses on reliability and production use, the Innovative Tier introduces newer features earlier, and the AI/MCP Tier explores future capabilities, including AI integrations.
René Cannaò, founder and CEO at ProxySQL, writes:
As ProxySQL has grown to power some of the world’s most demanding database infrastructures, our community’s needs have diversified. Some users require absolute, "boring" stability for mission-critical production environments. Others are eager to leverage the latest advancements in observability and Generative AI.
Version 3.0.6 mainly improves PostgreSQL support and is recommended for most production deployments. The Innovative Tier (3.1.x) targets early adopters and introduces new observability features such as an embedded time series database and a traffic observer for deeper insight into database traffic. The AI/MCP Tier (4.0.x) explores experimental capabilities, including native AI integrations and an MCP stack to enable more autonomous database management.
In a separate article, "Bringing GenAI to Every MySQL Instance: ProxySQL v4", Ronald Bradford, CTO at ProxySQL, writes:
Teams want RAG pipelines and natural language querying, but adding AI capabilities typically means schema migrations, new vector database infrastructure, dual-write synchronization headaches, and AI logic sprawled across every application layer. (...) ProxySQL v4.0 takes a different approach: (...) put the intelligence at the proxy layer, not in the database or the application.
ProxySQL is an open source proxy that manages database traffic with features such as load balancing and query routing. It is released under the GNU GPL v3 license, with additional enterprise features available under a commercial license from the project's company. Historically popular in the MySQL and MariaDB communities, ProxySQL has since 2024 added support for PostgreSQL, a move that has received positive reactions from the community.
ProxySQL 3.0.6 improves PostgreSQL support with advanced query logging and better compatibility, strengthens authentication reliability, enhances monitoring with clearer Prometheus metrics, and expands platform support to include macOS. Discussing the improvements in the latest stable release, Cannaò adds:
We’ve introduced native support for tracking replication lag on PostgreSQL backends. This allows ProxySQL to make more intelligent routing decisions based on real-time data freshness (...) We are continuing our journey to make ProxySQL a first-class citizen for the PostgreSQL ecosystem.
While ProxySQL is the most popular MySQL-aware proxy, with MySQL Router and MariaDB MaxScale as other common choices, PgBouncer is the most commonly used for PostgreSQL workloads, with PgCat and Pgpool-II as other popular options.
Cannaò presented the session "Bringing GenAI to every MySQL Instance" at Pre-FOSDEM MySQL Belgian Days 2026 in Brussels.