head to head · open source
TiDB vs rocksdb
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars, 6,242 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rocksdb has 32,106 stars, 6,930 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TiDB leads on adoption by 26% (40,541 vs 32,106 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, rocksdb 22%. 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 | rocksdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 32K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 6.9K |
| 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 rocksdb if
- You want the rocksdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and rocksdb 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 rocksdb
RocksDB is an embeddable, persistent key value store written in C++ and developed by the Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is a library rather than a standalone server, and it forms the core building block for a fast key value server. The project builds on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat and Jeff Dean, and it lives in the systems infrastructure and database ecosystem, carrying the topics database and storage engine. It has been public for roughly fourteen years and is dual licensed under GPLv2 and Apache 2.0, so a user may select either license at their option.
read the full rocksdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or rocksdb more popular?
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars and rocksdb has 32,106. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and rocksdb free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rocksdb under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between TiDB and rocksdb?
TiDB is written in Go and rocksdb 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 rocksdb?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,541 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rocksdb if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.