head to head · open source
TiDB vs neo4j
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars, 6,242 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. neo4j has 17,241 stars, 2,703 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. TiDB leads on adoption by 135% (40,541 vs 17,241 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; neo4j is written in Java under GPL-3.0. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, neo4j 16%. 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 | neo4j | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| 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 neo4j if
- You want the neo4j feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and neo4j fits your workflow better
About TiDB
TiDB is an open source, cloud native, distributed SQL database written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, aimed at teams that need ACID transactions, real time analytics, and vector search at scale without data silos.
About neo4j
Neo4j is a Java graph database released under GPL 3.0 that stores data as nodes and relationships and queries it with Cypher, aimed at developers, data engineers, and platform teams building connected data applications who would otherwise model those relationships as tables and joins.
read the full neo4j overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or neo4j more popular?
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars and neo4j has 17,241. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and neo4j free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0 and neo4j under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between TiDB and neo4j?
TiDB is written in Go and neo4j in Java. 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 neo4j?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,541 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose neo4j if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.