head to head · open source
TiDB vs Turso
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars, 6,242 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Turso has 17,215 stars, 530 forks, 453 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. TiDB leads on adoption by 135% (40,541 vs 17,215 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Turso is written in C under MIT. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Turso 3%. 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 | Turso | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 530 |
| 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 Turso if
- You want the Turso feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and Turso 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 Turso
libSQL is an open source, open contribution fork of SQLite created and maintained by Turso. It lives in the SQLite ecosystem and extends the embedded database model with features such as embedded replicas and remote access. The repository also distinguishes libSQL from the separate Turso database, which is a SQLite compatible implementation written from scratch in Rust and currently in beta.
read the full Turso overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or Turso more popular?
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars and Turso has 17,215. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and Turso free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Turso under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between TiDB and Turso?
TiDB is written in Go and Turso 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 Turso?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,541 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Turso if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.