TiDB
Open-source distributed SQL database that speaks MySQL and scales horizontally.
About
TiDB is an open-source NewSQL database built by PingCAP that supports hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP) in one system. It presents itself as a MySQL 8.0 server to applications, so existing MySQL client libraries and tools work with minimal or no code changes, while the storage layer (TiKV) scales horizontally and keeps transactions strongly consistent via an optimized two-phase commit.
First released in 2017 and licensed under Apache 2.0, TiDB draws its design inspiration from Google's Spanner and F1 papers. TiKV is a graduated CNCF project. TiDB separates compute from storage so each can scale independently, and TiFlash adds a columnar engine for real-time analytics on the same data. It is available self-managed on bare metal, VMs, and Kubernetes via the TiDB Operator, or as the fully managed TiDB Cloud with serverless scaling.
What it can do
- MySQL 8.0 protocol compatibility with no-fork SQL engine
- Horizontal scaling of compute and storage independently
- HTAP: row store plus columnar TiFlash for real-time analytics
- Self-managed, Kubernetes operator, or fully managed TiDB Cloud
Setup
Try the TiDB Playground locally, deploy with tiup or the Kubernetes operator, or create a cluster in TiDB Cloud in a few clicks.
Prerequisites
MySQL-compatible client or ORM; a workload that outgrows single-node MySQL.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via vendor site/docs/GitHub and reputable coverage, wave 98; Trending score 84/100 from researcher assessment.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.