head to head · open source
TiDB vs Activeloop
TiDB has 40,553 GitHub stars, 6,243 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped today. Activeloop has 9,241 stars, 722 forks, 66 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. TiDB leads on adoption by 339% (40,553 vs 9,241 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Activeloop is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Activeloop 8%. TiDB was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (agent, ai), 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 | Activeloop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-05-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 722 |
| 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 Activeloop if
- You want the Activeloop feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Activeloop 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 Activeloop
Activeloop Deep Lake is an open source database for AI data, written in C++ under Apache 2.0. It presents itself as a tensor database and AI data runtime for agents, combining serverless Postgres with a multimodal datalake for scalable retrieval and training. The project lives in the machine learning infrastructure ecosystem.
read the full Activeloop overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or Activeloop more popular?
TiDB has 40,553 GitHub stars and Activeloop has 9,241. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and Activeloop free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Activeloop under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between TiDB and Activeloop?
TiDB is written in Go and Activeloop 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 Activeloop?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,553 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Activeloop if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.