Pgpool-II vs TiCDC
Pgpool-II
pgpool.netTiCDC
docs.pingcap.comSide by side
| Figure | Pgpool-II | TiCDC |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Database Proxy Software | 7.4 (#21) | 8.1 (#6) |
| Documentation | Official documentation is available in English and Japanese, with tutorials for basic configuration, Watchdog, AWS, and Aurora. | The TiCDC documentation includes deployment, changefeeds, monitoring, alerting, troubleshooting, performance tuning, integration scenarios, APIs, compatibility, FAQs, and a glossary. |
| High availability | It provides automatic failover, Watchdog for Pgpool-II high availability, quorum, and split-brain prevention. | TiCDC has no single point of failure and supports dynamically adding or deleting TiCDC nodes. |
| Purpose | Pgpool-II is middleware between PostgreSQL servers and database clients that relays PostgreSQL protocol messages transparently. | TiCDC replicates incremental data from TiDB by capturing TiKV change logs, sorting the changes, and exporting row-based data to downstream systems. |
| Support | Community support is provided through mailing lists and GitHub Issues, while SRA OSS K.K. offers commercial technical support, consulting, and system integration. | PingCAP directs paid-plan users to support tickets and all users to community Slack support. |
Plans
In their own words
Pgpool-II
Pgpool-II is free, self-hosted middleware positioned between PostgreSQL servers and database clients. It relays PostgreSQL protocol messages, reuses matching server connections to reduce overhead, and distributes SELECT queries across replicated databases. High-availability functions include automatic failover, Watchdog, quorum, and split-brain prevention. Additional features include replication, online recovery, connection limiting, and an in-memory query cache. The project is available in binary and source formats, including RPM packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and compatible distributions; Debian and Ubuntu users are directed to PostgreSQL community packages. Authentication supports trust, clear-text password, MD5, SCRAM-SHA-256, certificates, PAM, and LDAP, but not GSSAPI. SSL can protect frontend and backend traffic when enabled; it is off by default and requires OpenSSL support. Community assistance is available through mailing lists and GitHub Issues, while SRA OSS K.K. offers commercial support, consulting, and integration. The license permits use, modification, copying, and distribution without a fee.
TiCDC
TiCDC is a free, open-source, self-hosted tool for replicating incremental data changes from TiDB. It captures TiKV change logs, sorts the changes, and exports row-based data to systems including TiDB, MySQL-compatible databases, Kafka, Amazon S3, GCS, Azure Blob Storage, and NFS. Recommended Kafka formats include Canal-JSON, Avro, and Debezium. Filters can select databases, tables, DMLs, and DDLs, while the Open API can check task status, change task configuration, and create or delete tasks. TiCDC supports replication between TiDB clusters for disaster recovery, with second-level RPO and minute-level RTO, as well as bidirectional replication for multi-active deployments. It can be deployed with a new cluster or added to an existing one; production guidance recommends at least two instances. The system has no single point of failure and allows nodes to be added or removed dynamically. Delivery is at least once, so failures can lead to repeated statements or Kafka messages.