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TDSQL (Tencent)

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by Tencent Cloud · since 2014 · also known as TDSQL, TDSQL Boundless, TDSQL-C, TencentDB for TDSQL

Tencent's financial-grade MySQL-compatible database family: distributed TDSQL and cloud-native TDSQL-C.

relationaldocumentwide-columnmanaged serviceproprietarymature
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Overview

TDSQL is Tencent's family of relational databases, best known for running core banking at WeBank and other Chinese financial institutions. The distributed editions (TDSQL and the newer TDSQL Boundless) partition data across multi-master nodes with Raft replication, two-phase commit and data-affinity scheduling that keeps related rows on the same node, while staying compatible with MySQL and, for Boundless, the HBase API. TDSQL-C is a separate cloud-native, shared-storage service compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, similar in spirit to Aurora. It is available on Tencent Cloud and as private-cloud deployments for banks. Outside China its documentation and ecosystem are limited.

Transactional apps (OLTP)Ledger & accountingHybrid (HTAP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +Proven in Chinese core banking (WeBank) with financial-grade consistency
  • +Multi-master distributed writes with Raft replication
  • +Data-affinity scheduling keeps most transactions single-node
  • +High MySQL compatibility for migrations
  • +Private-cloud deployment option for regulated institutions

Trade-offs

  • −Tencent Cloud-centric; little presence outside China
  • −Product naming and edition boundaries are confusing
  • −English documentation is thinner than Chinese
  • −Closed source with no community edition

Great for

  • +Core banking and payment systems in China
  • +Scaling MySQL workloads on Tencent Cloud
  • +Gaming and social backends in the Tencent ecosystem
  • +Oracle and DB2 replacement in financial services

Think twice for

  • −Workloads outside Tencent Cloud or China
  • −Open-source requirements
  • −Small single-node apps

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 11 of 25 tracked

✓Transactions
✓Joins
✓Secondary indexes
✓JSON
✓Change data capture
✓Stored procedures
✓Durable persistence
✓Compression
✓Encryption at rest
✓Role-based access
✓Online schema changes
–Full-text search
–Vector search
–Geospatial
–Triggers
–Materialized views
–TTL / expiry
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Time travel
–Branching
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Large · ≤ 1 PB
Horizontal scaling
Native
Multi-region
Read replicas
Transactions
Full ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Strict
Architecture
Distributed, Multi primary, Shared storage, Serverless
Query languages
SQL

Boundless scales from 2 to several hundred nodes with decoupled compute and storage; TDSQL-C scales read nodes on shared storage.

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

available on · Tencent Cloud

TDSQL BoundlessTencent CloudTDSQL-C for MySQLTencent Cloud

Ecosystem

compatible withMySQL, PostgreSQL, HBase
apis & protocolsMySQL wire protocol, PostgreSQL wire protocol (TDSQL-C), HBase API (Boundless)
client languagesJava, Go, Python, PHP, C++, JavaScript
used byWeBank

Alternatives to TDSQL (Tencent)

Compare all→
OceanBaseRelational19.4

Alipay-proven distributed SQL with MySQL (and Oracle, in Enterprise) compatibility, HTAP and vector search.

tencent-tdsql vs oceanbase →
TiDBRelational35.9

MySQL-compatible distributed SQL with a row store for OLTP and a columnar replica for real-time analytics.

tencent-tdsql vs tidb →
Alibaba PolarDBRelational2.7

Alibaba Cloud's shared-storage relational service in MySQL-, PostgreSQL- and Oracle-compatible editions.

tencent-tdsql vs polardb →
PolarDB-XRelational5.0

Alibaba's open-source, MySQL-compatible shared-nothing distributed SQL with Paxos and columnar indexes.

tencent-tdsql vs polardb-x →
Huawei GaussDBRelational6.8

Huawei's distributed enterprise RDBMS built on openGauss, aimed at replacing Oracle in Chinese finance.

tencent-tdsql vs huawei-gaussdb →
Amazon AuroraRelational24.9

AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer.

tencent-tdsql vs amazon-aurora →

TDSQL (Tencent) FAQ

What is TDSQL (Tencent)?

TDSQL (Tencent) is a relational database by Tencent Cloud, first released in 2014. TDSQL is Tencent's family of relational databases, best known for running core banking at WeBank and other Chinese financial institutions. The distributed editions (TDSQL and the newer TDSQL Boundless) partition data across multi-master nodes with Raft replication, two-phase commit and data-affinity scheduling that keeps related rows on the same node, while staying compatible with MySQL and, for Boundless, the HBase API. TDSQL-C is a separate cloud-native, shared-storage service compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, similar in spirit to Aurora. It is available on Tencent Cloud and as private-cloud deployments for banks. Outside China its documentation and ecosystem are limited.

Is TDSQL (Tencent) open source?

No. TDSQL (Tencent) is proprietary, closed-source software.

Does TDSQL (Tencent) support ACID transactions?

Yes. TDSQL (Tencent) supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.

Does TDSQL (Tencent) scale horizontally?

TDSQL (Tencent) scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at large scale (≤ 1 PB). It supports cross-region read replicas.

How can I run TDSQL (Tencent)?

You can self-host it, use the vendor's managed cloud and run it serverless. Managed offerings include TDSQL Boundless and TDSQL-C for MySQL. It is available on Tencent Cloud.

What is TDSQL (Tencent) best for?

TDSQL (Tencent) is a strong fit for core banking and payment systems in China; scaling MySQL workloads on Tencent Cloud; and gaming and social backends in the Tencent ecosystem. Think twice for workloads outside Tencent Cloud or China.

What are the best alternatives to TDSQL (Tencent)?

Common alternatives to TDSQL (Tencent) include OceanBase, TiDB, Alibaba PolarDB, PolarDB-X and Huawei GaussDB. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

How popular is TDSQL (Tencent)?

TDSQL (Tencent) has little measurable public adoption today, so it ranks near the bottom of the WhichDB Score.