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TiDB Cloud

pingcap.com

Free plan Open source WebLinuxAPISelf-hosted
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Spec score 9.2 #5 of 74 in Database Software

What it is

TiDB Cloud is a managed cloud database service built around an open-source distributed SQL database with MySQL compatibility. It supports transactional and analytical workloads, horizontal scaling, multi-region deployment, and geo-partitioning across Starter, Essential, Premium, and Dedicated plans. Starter includes up to 25 GiB of row storage, 25 GiB of column storage, and 250 million Request Units per month per organization, for up to the first five instances. Its on-demand compute scales to zero when idle, and vector storage and search are in public preview. CSV, Parquet, and SQL file imports are supported across the listed plans. Email and password login, SSO options, private and public endpoints, and console audit logging are listed across all four plans. Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog integrations are listed for Essential, Premium, and Dedicated in public preview. All users can submit billing and account support tickets; guaranteed technical-ticket response times require paid support plans. The service is available through web and API platforms. Starter is free; the Dedicated plan is listed as starting at $0.22 a month and from $1376 / month.

Spec sheet

What it does
TiDB Cloud is a fully managed distributed SQL database service for transactional, analytical, vector-search and AI workloads.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Product
TiDB Cloud is a fully managed cloud database service built around an open-source distributed SQL database with MySQL compatibility.Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Free plan
YesRead 20 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Integrations
Official integrations include Kubernetes via TiDB Operator, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Kafka, Flink, Confluent, Airbyte, Amazon AppFlow and dbt.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Security
TiDB Cloud supports email and password login, standard SSO, organization SSO, private endpoints, public endpoints, and console audit logging across all four listed plans.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Support
Support is provided through the Help Center, email, chat and video conferencing; Basic users use community Slack or Discord for technical questions.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Founded
2015Read 28 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Company
PingCAP says it started in 2015, founded by three infrastructure engineers who set out to build an open-source database.Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Analytics and AI
TiDB Cloud combines transactional processing with real-time analytics, full-text search and native vector capabilities.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
API scope
API versions manage Premium instances, Starter/Essential/Dedicated clusters, projects, backups, restores, billing, Data Service and IAM resources.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Autoscaling
The platform supports on-demand or provisioned capacity and automatically adjusts compute to workload demand.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
BYOC architecture
BYOC keeps the data plane, storage and network boundaries in the customer cloud account while PingCAP manages the control plane and operations.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
CLI
The preview ticloud CLI can create, delete, list, import and export Starter and Essential instances.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Cloud availability
TiDB Cloud is available on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud, with more than 30 regions claimed on the product page.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Company identity
PingCAP says it started in 2015 with three infrastructure engineers building an open-source distributed SQL database.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Company profile
LinkedIn lists TiDB powered by PingCAP as privately held, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with 501–1,000 employees.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
Compatibility
Starter provides MySQL compatibility and PostgreSQL compatibility is available in public preview.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Data features
Starter supports vector storage and vector search in public preview, while CSV, Parquet, and SQL file imports are supported across all listed TiDB Cloud plans.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Data Service
Preview Data Service exposes custom SQL endpoints over HTTPS and can generate OpenAPI 3.0 specifications for client SDK or server-stub generation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Deployment choices
The service offers Starter, Essential, Premium, BYOC, Dedicated and TiDB Cloud Lake deployment options.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Documentation
Documentation covers getting started, guides, SQL reference, APIs, integrations, security, billing, FAQs, CLI and Terraform workflows.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Encryption
Data at rest and network traffic are encrypted; supported TLS versions are 1.2 and 1.3.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Funding
LinkedIn states PingCAP raised a $300 million Series D+ in July 2021 and approximately $600 million total since founding.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
Licence
The TiDB database source code, including enterprise features, is released under the Apache 2.0 licence.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Limit: cost and complexity
PeerSpot reviewers cite significant cost, need for distributed-systems expertise, complicated setup, monitoring gaps, migration-tool gaps and TiFlash concurrency issues.Read 15 Oct 2026 · peerspot.com
Limit: learning curve and observability
G2 reviewers report that distributed setup, performance tuning, monitoring and vector-search documentation can be difficult for beginners.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Limits
Starter grants free quota to up to the first five instances in an organization, with 5 GiB each of row and column storage and 50 million RUs per instance per month.Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Operations
Managed deployments include automated upgrades, health monitoring, performance tuning, backups and failover capabilities.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Praise: cost and scaling
PeerSpot summaries repeatedly mention horizontal scaling, high availability, automation, real-time analytics, cost efficiency and Prometheus/Grafana integration.Read 15 Oct 2026 · peerspot.com
Praise: scalability and compatibility
G2 reviewers repeatedly praise horizontal scalability, MySQL compatibility, strong consistency, high availability and unified transactional/analytical or vector workloads.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Praise: support and HTAP
Gartner reviewers praise PingCAP support, documentation, reliability, scalability and the ability to combine transactional and analytical processing.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gartner.com
Public API
The TiDB Cloud REST API is public preview, HTTPS-only, JSON-based and uses API-key HTTP Digest Authentication.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Rating on G2
4.6 out of 5 from 66 reviewsRead 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Rating on Gartner Peer Insights
4.9 out of 5 from 165 ratingsRead 15 Oct 2026 · gartner.com
Rating on GetApp
0 out of 5 from 0 reviewsRead 15 Oct 2026 · getapp.com
Rating on PeerSpot
PeerSpot displays individual TiDB Cloud reviews ranging from 3.5 to 4.5 out of 5, rather than a single aggregate rating on the opened page.Read 15 Oct 2026 · peerspot.com
Scaling
Starter offers on-demand compute that scales to zero when idle.Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Security controls
Security features include SSO, MFA, fine-grained IAM, private endpoints, VPC peering, IP access lists, TLS, CMEK options and console/database audit logs.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Self-hosting
TiDB Community can be deployed with TiDB Operator on Kubernetes or with Terraform-based AWS EKS and Google GKE procedures.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Starter free quota
Starter includes up to 25 GiB of row storage, 25 GiB of column storage, and 250 million Request Units per month for each organization.Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Status on 2026-10-15
The TiDB Cloud status page reported all systems operational and no incidents on October 15, 2026.Read 15 Oct 2026 · status.tidbcloud.com
Support channels
TiDB Cloud support includes tickets, Slack and Discord community channels, and the TiDB.AI assistant for common technical and documentation questions.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Terraform
A Terraform provider is distributed through Terraform Registry and requires Terraform 1.0 or newer plus a TiDB Cloud API key.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pingcap.com
Workloads
The product supports scalable transactional processing and analytical processing across Starter, Essential, Premium, and Dedicated plans.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.pingcap.com

Plans and prices

TiDB Cloud Starter Free Starts from $0/month; free quotas apply per organization 25 GiB row storage · 25 GiB column storage · 250M Request Units per month Read 20 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
TiDB Cloud Essential Price not published 100K Request Units Read 20 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
TiDB Cloud Premium $1,800 a month Public preview 99.99% availability Read 20 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
TiDB Cloud Dedicated $0.22 a month Starts from $0.22/hr; Starts from $1376 / month 4 vCPU to 32 vCPU per node; available on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure; PCI-DSS and SOC 2 Type II compliant Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Starter Free Pay for usage beyond free allowance 25 GiB row storage · 25 GiB columnar storage · 250M Request Units per organization across up to five eligible instances Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
TiDB Cloud Starter Free Starts from $0/month 25 GiB row storage + 25 GiB column storage + 250M RUs free per month per organization; $0.20 per additional GiB storage; $0.10 per additional 1M RUs; spend limits available; scales to zero Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
Essential $400 a month Minimum capacity charges; storage and other services extra Public preview · autoscaling within compute limit · point-in-time recovery · encryption in transit and at rest Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Dedicated $1,376 a month Starting cluster price; varies by provider, region and configuration AWS, Google Cloud or Azure · configurable node sizes and counts · independent compute and storage scaling · private endpoints · automated backups Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Premium $1,800 a month Minimum capacity charges; storage and other services extra Public preview · isolated compute, storage and network · private connectivity · customer-managed keys · 99.99% availability Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
TiDB Cloud Premium Preview $1,800 a month Starts from $1800 / month Provisioned compute with autoscaling for unlimited growth; 99.99% availability with multi-zone protection; CMEK, PrivateLink, and VPC Peering Read 29 Sep 2026 · pingcap.com
BYOC Priced on request TiDB Cloud service and support fees plus infrastructure billed by your cloud provider Public preview · data plane in customer cloud account · managed operations Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com
Lake Dedicated Priced on request Warehouse compute and cloud services contact sales; storage $23/TB-month Public preview · isolated environment · custom resources · scheduled upgrades Read 15 Oct 2026 · pingcap.com

Every TiDB Cloud plan and price →

Strong points and limits

Strong points

  • Supports transactional and analytical workloads.
  • Starter compute scales to zero when idle.
  • CSV, Parquet, and SQL imports span listed plans.
  • Supports horizontal scaling and multi-region deployment.

Limits

  • Starter’s free quota covers up to five instances per organization.
  • Vector storage and search are in public preview.
  • Guaranteed technical-ticket response times require paid support plans.

Who it suits

TiDB Cloud suits teams seeking a managed MySQL-compatible distributed SQL database for transactional and analytical workloads. Starter may suit organizations testing the service within its storage and Request Unit quotas.

Verdict

TiDB Cloud offers a free Starter tier and several plans for managed distributed SQL workloads. Check the Starter quotas and preview status of vector features and listed integrations.

Where Specifiction places it

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