head to head · open source
TiDB vs VictoriaMetrics
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars, 6,242 forks, 6,976 open issues and last shipped yesterday. VictoriaMetrics has 17,731 stars, 1,743 forks, 800 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TiDB leads on adoption by 129% (40,541 vs 17,731 stars). TiDB is written in Go under Apache-2.0; VictoriaMetrics is written in Go under Apache-2.0. TiDB has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, VictoriaMetrics 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 | VictoriaMetrics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 18K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 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 VictoriaMetrics if
- You want the VictoriaMetrics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and VictoriaMetrics 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 VictoriaMetrics
VictoriaMetrics is time series database for metrics and logs. It is monitoring solution and database, written in Go, licensed under Apache 2.0. Category is Infrastructure & Operations / Databases. GitHub metadata lists 17714 stars and 1738 forks. Homepage is victoriametrics.com. It lives in infrastructure and operations ecosystem. Topic list includes Prometheus, Grafana, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, OTLP, Graphite, InfluxDB, OpenTSDB, metrics, monitoring, observability.
read the full VictoriaMetrics overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is TiDB or VictoriaMetrics more popular?
TiDB has 40,541 GitHub stars and VictoriaMetrics has 17,731. TiDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are TiDB and VictoriaMetrics free?
Both are open source. TiDB is licensed under Apache-2.0 and VictoriaMetrics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between TiDB and VictoriaMetrics?
TiDB is written in Go and VictoriaMetrics in Go. 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 VictoriaMetrics?
Choose TiDB if you want the larger community (40,541 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose VictoriaMetrics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.