# TiDB

> Apache-2.0 distributed MySQL-compatible SQL database

**Category:** Databases  
**Pricing:** open-source  
**URL:** https://www.pingcap.com/tidb/  
**GitHub:** https://github.com/pingcap/tidb  
**Added:** 2026-10-18

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## The Hook

TiDB is an open-source, distributed SQL database that speaks the MySQL protocol and scales out horizontally, with strong consistency through Raft and separate compute and storage layers.

## What's Good

Apache-2.0 (pingcap/tidb), developed since 2015. Distributed transactions use two-phase commit for ACID guarantees, data is replicated with Raft for automatic failover, and compute (TiDB) scales separately from storage (TiKV) without downtime. A columnar TiFlash engine adds real-time analytics on the same data (HTAP). Runs on Kubernetes via an operator or locally with the TiUP playground. ★~40.6k.

## The Catch

A production cluster is several components (TiDB, TiKV, PD, optionally TiFlash) across at least three nodes, which is a lot of ops for a small app. MySQL compatibility is high but not total, so test your queries and features. The managed TiDB Cloud is PingCAP's commercial service.

## Verdict

Serious scale-out MySQL when one primary is no longer enough — overkill before that.