I think that the KB contains docs for a feature which is not really implemented: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/explain-analyze/ The page says: "SHOW EXPLAIN was introduced in MariaDB 10.0.5." However, when running the example query on 10.0.5, I get a syntax error: MariaDB [(none)]> SELECT VERSION(); +--------------------+ | VERSION() | +--------------------+ | 10.0.5-MariaDB-log | +--------------------+ 1 row in set (0.01 sec) MariaDB [(none)]> explain analyze select * from tbl where key1 between 5000 and 5050 and col1='val-1'\G ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'analyze select * from tbl where key1 between 5000 and 5050 and col1='val-1'' at line 1 Federico