head to head · open source
TiDB vs QuestDB
TiDB has 40,701 GitHub stars, 6,284 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. QuestDB has 17,496 stars, 1,685 forks, 952 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TiDB leads on adoption by 133% (40,701 vs 17,496 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; QuestDB is written in Java under Apache-2.0. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, QuestDB 10%. 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 | QuestDB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 QuestDB if
- You want the QuestDB feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and QuestDB 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 QuestDB
English 简体中文 QuestDB is the open source, low latency time series database on open formats. It ingests millions of events per second, computes on live data in milliseconds, and keeps years of history queryable. One SQL engine spans ingestion, stream processing, and tiered storage. The engine is zero GC Java with C++ and Rust on the hot paths. Data lives in memory mapped, time partitioned columns. Queries run across all cores with SIMD and JIT compiled filters. There are no third party dependencies on the data path. Storage is tiered: a parallel write ahead log, native columnar partitions, and Apache Parquet. In…
read the full QuestDB overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or QuestDB more popular?
TiDB has 40,701 GitHub stars and QuestDB has 17,496. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and QuestDB free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0 and QuestDB under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between TiDB and QuestDB?
TiDB is written in Go and QuestDB 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 QuestDB?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,701 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose QuestDB if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.