head to head · open source
TiDB vs neo4j
TiDB has 40,701 GitHub stars, 6,284 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. neo4j has 17,386 stars, 2,835 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. TiDB leads on adoption by 134% (40,701 vs 17,386 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 2.8K |
| 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 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 neo4j
= Neo4j: Graphs for Everyone = is the world's leading Graph Database. It is a high performance graph store with all the features expected of a mature and robust database, like a friendly query language and ACID transactions. The programmer works with a flexible network structure of nodes and relationships rather than static tables yet enjoys all the benefits of enterprise quality database. For many applications, Neo4j offers orders of magnitude performance benefits compared to relational DBs. Learn more on the website]. users]] == Using Neo4j == Neo4j is available as a fully managed solution where you can get…
read the full neo4j overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or neo4j more popular?
TiDB has 40,701 GitHub stars and neo4j has 17,386. 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 (40,701 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.