What is TiDB?
An open-source distributed SQL database trusted by innovators to power transactional, AI, and other modern applications.
TiDB pricing
Plans, per-tier features and add-ons, dated and linked to live pricing. Pricing changes often; always verify at source before you rely on it.
From free to $1800+/month, usage-based pricing
Starter
FreeFully-managed cloud DBaaS for applications with variable workloads, available on AWS and Alibaba Cloud.
- row_storage
- 25 GiB
- request_units
- 250M per month
- column_storage
- 25 GiB
- 25 GiB row storage included
- 25 GiB column storage included
- 250M Request Units per month included
- Scale down to zero
- Set spend limits
Essential
Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for production workloads that need performance, security, and scale.
- Provisioned compute with autoscaling up to 100K Request Units
- Point-in-time backup with up to 30-day retention
- Encrypted in transit and at rest
- Usage-based pricing with predictable costs
Premium
Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for mission-critical, hyper-scale applications.
- Provisioned compute with autoscaling to support unlimited growth
- Enterprise-grade security featuring CMEK, PrivateLink, and VPC Peering
- 99.99% availability with multi-zone protection
- Usage-based pricing with predictable costs
Dedicated
Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for applications with predictable traffic.
What TiDB does
The capabilities that matter for relational databases, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- SQL model
- Full SQL
- ACID transactions
- Full
- Highest isolation level
- -
- Consistency
- Strong
- Horizontal scale
- Natively distributed
- Replication
- -
- Automatic failover / HA
- ✓
- Deployment
- Managed
- Serverless / scale-to-zero
- ✓
- Wire compatibility
- MySQL protocol
- Extensions / plugins / UDFs
- -
- Licence class
- -
- JSON / document support
- -
- Geo / spatial
- -
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- Web
- Linux
- Cloud / SaaS
- Self-hosted
TiDB alternatives
Other relational databases we track, ranked by the same independent score.
The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for TiDB, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Security Posture | 60 | 18.00 | 1080.0 | ✓ |
| Reliability | 100 | 10.00 | 995.0 | ✓ |
| Pricing Transparency | 100 | 8.00 | 800.0 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 46 | 17.00 | 778.9 | ✓ |
| Price Level | 80 | 6.00 | 480.0 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 0 | 8.00 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | {"sql_model":"full_sql","deployment":"managed","serverless":true,"consistency":"strong","horizontal_scale":"distributed_native","acid_transactions":"full","automatic_failover":true,"wire_compatibility":"mysql"} | mediumsource · 2026-08-03 · 60% |