CockroachDB vs TiDB by PingCAP
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.
Why leading enterprises choose CockroachDB
Simplified operations
CockroachDB offers native scale with a single binary, ensuring that running and upgrading CockroachDB is as simple as possible.
Global data
CockroachDB provides a simple DDL that allows you to define where data lives across multiple regions.
Transactions
CockroachDB was architected for complex, high performant distributed transactions with serializable isolation as the default.
Comparison data as of July 2025
Databases and platform freedom
CockroachDB is architected to give you the freedom to deploy your database anywhere: Any private or public cloud, across multiple clouds, using our innovative Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) offering, on premises, self-hosted, or in a hybrid deployment encompassing some or all of these. Use the best solution for your workloads without cloud provider or deployment model lock-in.
Freedom from lock-in
Make smart use of your existing resources with CockroachDB’s hybrid-cloud capabilities. AWS Aurora won’t let you deploy in a hybrid environment
Freedom of choice
Pick any (or multiple) providers and run self-deployed or as-a-service. Because no one should have to be locked into a single provider
Freedom to grow
Effortlessly scale and take control of your workloads. Avoid the significant egress costs often seen when moving data with AWS Aurora
