diff --git a/doc/man/man5/slapd-bdb.5 b/doc/man/man5/slapd-bdb.5
index 3b40ce38d22e221764abcdfcb2a374336478e96b..4f6c8c3a09722f72ca2ca1f7359c8a59e43de637 100644
--- a/doc/man/man5/slapd-bdb.5
+++ b/doc/man/man5/slapd-bdb.5
@@ -12,7 +12,11 @@ The \fBbdb\fP backend to
 uses the Oracle Berkeley DB (BDB) package to store data.
 It makes extensive use of indexing and caching to speed data access.
 .LP
-\fBhdb\fP is the recommended primary database backend.  It is a variant of
+Note that BDB is deprecated and support will be dropped in future
+OpenLDAP releases. Installations should use the \fBmdb\fP
+backend instead.
+.LP
+\fBhdb\fP is a variant of
 the \fBbdb\fP backend that uses a hierarchical database layout which
 supports subtree renames. It is both more space-efficient and more
 execution-efficient than the \fBbdb\fP backend.  It is otherwise identical
@@ -269,6 +273,7 @@ Berkeley DB configuration file
 .SH SEE ALSO
 .BR slapd.conf (5),
 .BR slapd\-config (5),
+.BR slapd\-mdb (5),
 .BR slapd (8),
 .BR slapadd (8),
 .BR slapcat (8),
diff --git a/doc/man/man5/slapd-mdb.5 b/doc/man/man5/slapd-mdb.5
index 3bd02a99a14f59e5ca5f16636ce0b4d292717649..58ba668f81537bbb24da645dad5d2d9c99190e6c 100644
--- a/doc/man/man5/slapd-mdb.5
+++ b/doc/man/man5/slapd-mdb.5
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ The \fBmdb\fP backend to
 .BR slapd (8)
 uses OpenLDAP's Lightning Memory-Mapped DB (LMDB) library to store data.
 It relies completely on the underlying operating system for memory
-management and does no caching of its own.
+management and does no caching of its own. It is the recommended
+primary database backend.
 .LP
 The \fBmdb\fP backend is similar to the \fBhdb\fP backend in that
 it uses a hierarchical database layout which
@@ -178,9 +179,6 @@ The
 .B mdb
 backend honors access control semantics as indicated in
 .BR slapd.access (5).
-.SH NOTES
-This is an early release; the database file format or other
-characteristics may change incompatibly in future releases.
 .SH FILES
 .TP
 .B ETCDIR/slapd.conf