head to head · open source
TiDB vs Dragonfly
TiDB has 40,701 GitHub stars, 6,284 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dragonfly has 31,844 stars, 1,295 forks, 308 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TiDB leads on adoption by 28% (40,701 vs 31,844 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Dragonfly is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Dragonfly 4%. TiDB was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| TiDB | Dragonfly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 32K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick TiDB if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Dragonfly if
- You want the Dragonfly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Dragonfly fits your workflow better
About TiDB
TiDB TiDB (/’taɪdiːbi:/, "Ti" stands for Titanium) is an open source, cloud native, distributed SQL database designed for high availability, horizontal and vertical scalability, strong consistency, and high performance. Key Features Quick Start Need Help? Architecture Contributing License See Also Acknowledgments Key Features Distributed Transactions : TiDB uses a two phase commit protocol to ensure ACID compliance, providing strong consistency. Transactions span multiple nodes, and TiDB's distributed nature ensures data correctness even in the presence of network partitions or node failures. Horizontal and…
About Dragonfly
Before moving on, please consider giving us a GitHub star ⭐️. Thank you! Other languages: 简体中文 日本語 한국어 Português ภาษาไทย Website • Docs • Quick Start • Community Discord • Dragonfly User Conference • Join the Dragonfly Community GitHub Discussions • GitHub Issues • Contributing • AI Agents Guide • Dragonfly Cloud The world's most efficient in memory data store Dragonfly is an in memory data store built for modern application workloads. Fully compatible with Redis and Memcached APIs, Dragonfly requires no code changes to adopt. Compared to legacy in memory datastores, Dragonfly delivers 25X more throughput…
read the full Dragonfly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or Dragonfly more popular?
TiDB has 40,701 GitHub stars and Dragonfly has 31,844. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and Dragonfly free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Dragonfly has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between TiDB and Dragonfly?
TiDB is written in Go and Dragonfly in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, TiDB or Dragonfly?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,701 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Dragonfly if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.