CockroachDB vs TiDB

For teams evaluating distributed SQL solutions, both CockroachDB and TiDB can seem like strong contenders, each offering features designed to meet the demands of modern, scalable applications. CockroachDB is known for its focus on resilience, global consistency, and effortless scalability, while TiDB emphasizes MySQL compatibility and hybrid transactional/analytical processing (HTAP).

Understanding the key differences between these databases is critical to choosing the right fit for your specific workload and long-term needs. This comparison sheds light on their unique strengths, trade-offs, and use cases to help you make an informed decision.

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Why leading enterprises choose CockroachDB

Simplified operations

Simplified operations

CockroachDB offers native scale with a single binary, ensuring that running and upgrading CockroachDB is as simple as possible.

Global data

Global data

CockroachDB provides a simple DDL that allows you to define where data lives across multiple regions.

Transactional analytics

Transactions

CockroachDB was architected for complex, high performant distributed transactions with serializable isolation as the default.

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Isolation Level
Highest level of isolation: SERIALIZABLE by default
Snapshot consistency
Anomalies
No anomalies
Susceptible to phantom reads and write skew anomalies
Migration Tooling
Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle dialects, with SQL Server coming soon
Supports only MySQL-compatible databases
Security
Fine-grained encryption at cluster, database, table, or partition levels
Single cluster-wide managed encryption key
LDAP Support
Yes, in production
Undocumented, supported via plugin
Multi-region Data Domiciling
Native support for regional data placement
Unavailable
Wire Compatibility
PostgreSQL
MySQL
Ideal Use Case
Fully optimized for OLTP applications
Balances transactional and analytical systems

Architected to deliver the resilience modern business demands

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User accounts & metadata

Deliver flawless customer experiences built on accurate, always available user data.

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Payments systems

When it comes to capturing payments at scale, data consistency and high availability are priceless.

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Inventory management

Sell to zero (but not beyond) with always-accurate stock counts, even when shoppers have a change of cart.

Related resources

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BLOG

Learn more about migrating to CockroachDB

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WEBINAR

How Shipt built a distributed payment system on CockroachDB

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WEBINAR

Introduction to Distributed SQL