TiDB Cloud
TiDB Cloud is a managed cloud database service built around an open-source distributed SQL database with MySQL compatibility.
What TiDB Cloud 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 processing, with horizontal scaling, multi-region deployment, and geo-partitioning listed among its capabilities. The service has Starter, Essential, Premium, and Dedicated plans. Starter provides up to 25 GiB each of row and column storage and 250 million Request Units per month per organization, with free quotas covering up to the first five instances. Its compute can scale to zero when idle. Vector storage and search are in public preview, and all listed plans support CSV, Parquet, and SQL file imports. Essential, Premium, and Dedicated list Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog integrations in public preview. All four plans list email and password login, SSO options, private and public endpoints, and console audit logging. The service is available through web and API platforms. Billing and account support tickets are open to all users; guaranteed technical-ticket response times require paid support plans.
Good
- MySQL compatibility with transactional and analytical workloads.
- Starter includes free row and column storage quotas.
- Starter compute scales to zero when idle.
- All listed plans support CSV, Parquet, and SQL imports.
- Horizontal scaling and multi-region deployment are listed.
Watch out
- Vector storage and search are in public preview.
- Listed observability integrations are in public preview.
- Guaranteed technical-ticket response times require paid support plans.
Who it suits
TiDB Cloud may suit teams needing a managed MySQL-compatible database for transactional and analytical workloads. Starter's free quota and scale-to-zero compute may interest organizations evaluating the service or running workloads with idle periods.
Verdict
TiDB Cloud combines managed database service with MySQL compatibility and support for transactional and analytical workloads. Starter has a stated free quota, while some integrations and vector capabilities remain in public preview.
Plans and prices
From TiDB Cloud's own pricing page, checked 20 Sep 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| TiDB Cloud Essential | — | 100K Request Units |
| TiDB Cloud Premium | $1,800 a month | 99.99% availability · Public preview |
| TiDB Cloud Dedicated | $0.22 a month | 4 vCPU to 32 vCPU per node; available on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure; PCI-DSS and SOC 2 Type II compliant · Starts from $0.22/hr; Starts from $1376 / month |
| TiDB Cloud Starter | Free | 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 · Starts from $0/month |
| Starter | Free | 25 GiB row storage · 25 GiB columnar storage · 250M Request Units per organization across up to five eligible instances · Pay for usage beyond free allowance |
| Essential | $400 a month | Public preview · autoscaling within compute limit · point-in-time recovery · encryption in transit and at rest · Minimum capacity charges; storage and other services extra |
| Dedicated | $1,376 a month | AWS, Google Cloud or Azure · configurable node sizes and counts · independent compute and storage scaling · private endpoints · automated backups · Starting cluster price; varies by provider, region and configuration |
| TiDB Cloud Premium Preview | $1,800 a month | Provisioned compute with autoscaling for unlimited growth; 99.99% availability with multi-zone protection; CMEK, PrivateLink, and VPC Peering · Starts from $1800 / month |
| Premium | $1,800 a month | Public preview · isolated compute, storage and network · private connectivity · customer-managed keys · 99.99% availability · Minimum capacity charges; storage and other services extra |
| TiDB Cloud Essential Preview | Priced on request | Provisioned compute with autoscaling up to 100K Request Units; point-in-time backup with up to 30-day retention; encrypted in transit and at rest · Typical small prod: ≈$20 / day |
| Lake Dedicated | Priced on request | Public preview · isolated environment · custom resources · scheduled upgrades · Warehouse compute and cloud services contact sales; storage $23/TB-month |
| BYOC | Priced on request | Public preview · data plane in customer cloud account · managed operations · TiDB Cloud service and support fees plus infrastructure billed by your cloud provider |
The facts
Each one read from TiDB Cloud's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Analytics and AI
- TiDB Cloud combines transactional processing with real-time analytics, full-text search and native vector capabilities.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API scope
- API versions manage Premium instances, Starter/Essential/Dedicated clusters, projects, backups, restores, billing, Data Service and IAM resources.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Autoscaling
- The platform supports on-demand or provisioned capacity and automatically adjusts compute to workload demand.checked 15 Oct 2026
- BYOC architecture
- BYOC keeps the data plane, storage and network boundaries in the customer cloud account while PingCAP manages the control plane and operations.checked 15 Oct 2026
- CLI
- The preview ticloud CLI can create, delete, list, import and export Starter and Essential instances.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Cloud availability
- TiDB Cloud is available on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud, with more than 30 regions claimed on the product page.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Compatibility
- Starter provides MySQL compatibility and PostgreSQL compatibility is available in public preview.checked 15 Oct 2026
- 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.checked 29 Sep 2026
- 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.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Deployment choices
- The service offers Starter, Essential, Premium, BYOC, Dedicated and TiDB Cloud Lake deployment options.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Documentation
- Documentation covers getting started, guides, SQL reference, APIs, integrations, security, billing, FAQs, CLI and Terraform workflows.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Encryption
- Data at rest and network traffic are encrypted; supported TLS versions are 1.2 and 1.3.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Funding
- LinkedIn states PingCAP raised a $300 million Series D+ in July 2021 and approximately $600 million total since founding.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Official integrations include Kubernetes via TiDB Operator, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Kafka, Flink, Confluent, Airbyte, Amazon AppFlow and dbt.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Licence
- The TiDB database source code, including enterprise features, is released under the Apache 2.0 licence.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: learning curve and observability
- G2 reviewers report that distributed setup, performance tuning, monitoring and vector-search documentation can be difficult for beginners.checked 15 Oct 2026
- 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.checked 29 Sep 2026
- Operations
- Managed deployments include automated upgrades, health monitoring, performance tuning, backups and failover capabilities.checked 15 Oct 2026
The company
- Company
- PingCAP says it started in 2015, founded by three infrastructure engineers who set out to build an open-source database.checked 29 Sep 2026
- Company identity
- PingCAP says it started in 2015 with three infrastructure engineers building an open-source distributed SQL database.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Company profile
- LinkedIn lists TiDB powered by PingCAP as privately held, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with 501–1,000 employees.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Founded
- 2015checked 28 Sep 2026
Money
- Free plan
- Yeschecked 20 Sep 2026
- 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.checked 15 Oct 2026
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