AI visibility report
PingCAP ranks #1 in Databases & Data Infrastructure AI search.
Outside the top three on 13 of the 25 prompts buyers actually ask.
Supabase is cited on 6 of those losses.
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Track PingCAP across these prompts daily.
Start free trialBest among 15 vendors · still absent from 93.3% of tracked prompt responses
Top-3 citations across 150 prompt × platform pairs
Peer Ranking
Key Metrics
Platform Breakdown
Perplexity
Google AI Mode
ChatGPT
Gemini Search
Bing Copilot
GrokLeader, with room to expand. PingCAP leads this category on presence and share of voice, but appears in only 6.7% of tracked prompt responses. The priority is defending current wins while expanding absolute coverage.
Where PingCAP is losing
Prompts where competitors are visible and PingCAP is not.
These prompt-level losses are the first prompts to track and repair.
Where PingCAP is winning5
Which time-series databases have the best query authoring and debugging experience for teams coming from relational databases?
Avg # 1.0 · 1 platform
Which time-series databases maintain query performance best at 10 million events per second ingestion over long retention periods?
Avg # 1.0 · 1 platform
Which distributed SQL databases handle automatic failover most reliably when a node goes down — with the fastest recovery times?
Avg # 1.0 · 1 platform
Which globally distributed SQL databases are worth evaluating for a latency-sensitive SaaS product compared to a traditional single-region setup?
Avg # 1.3 · 3 platforms
Which managed database services offer the best backup and point-in-time recovery for production applications handling financial transactions?
Avg # 3.0 · 1 platform
Where PingCAP is losing5
Which document databases handle schema evolution most smoothly — without requiring migration scripts for every change?
Competitors on 4 platforms
Track this promptWhich distributed SQL platforms support migrating from a legacy relational database with minimal downtime for a production application?
Competitors on 3 platforms
Track this promptWhich database platforms support branching so I can get a fresh isolated database copy per pull request for feature development?
Competitors on 2 platforms
Track this promptWhich cloud-native database platforms handle connection pooling best for serverless workloads with unpredictable connection spikes?
Competitors on 1 platform
Track this promptWhat in-memory caching tools integrate best with persistent databases — and which are worth adding versus just optimizing primary database queries?
Competitors on 1 platform
Track this prompt
Track PingCAP daily before the next report refresh.
Track these gapsResearch dossierCapabilities, use cases, sources, reviews, pricing, and FAQ
Overview
PingCAP is a Silicon Valley–headquartered database company founded in 2015 by infrastructure engineers Max Liu (CEO) and Ed Huang (CTO). Its flagship product, TiDB, is an open-source, MySQL-compatible distributed SQL database designed for horizontal scalability, high availability, and Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP). TiDB combines a row-store engine (TiKV) and a columnar engine (TiFlash) to serve OLTP and OLAP workloads from a single system, eliminating the need for separate data warehouses. Available as TiDB Cloud (managed DBaaS on AWS, GCP, Azure) or self-managed on Kubernetes, TiDB targets enterprises, SaaS providers, and AI-native companies. It is adopted by customers including Atlassian, Pinterest, Plaid, Bolt, Rakuten, and Manus. The TiDB GitHub repository has over 40,000 stars and TiKV is a CNCF Graduated project.
TiDB is an open-source, MySQL-compatible distributed SQL database built for elastic horizontal scale, high availability, and HTAP (Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing). Developed by PingCAP, it unifies OLTP, real-time analytics, and native vector search in a single engine—replacing separate transactional databases, data warehouses, and vector stores. TiDB Cloud offers fully managed serverless and dedicated tiers on AWS, GCP, and Azure, while TiDB Self-Managed runs on Kubernetes or bare metal. As of 2025–2026, PingCAP positions TiDB as the primary database for agentic AI workloads, emphasizing ACID consistency, multi-tenant isolation, autoscaling to zero, and MCP-based AI agent connectivity.
Key Facts
- Founded
- 2015
- HQ
- Sunnyvale, CA, USA
- Founders
- Max Liu, Ed Huang
- Employees
- 201-500
- Funding
- ~$342M
- Valuation
- ~$3B
- Status
- Private
Target users
Key Capabilities10
- MySQL 8.0-compatible distributed SQL with no application code changes required for migration
- HTAP: simultaneous OLTP (TiKV row-store) and OLAP (TiFlash columnar-store) in one engine
- Horizontal elastic scaling with automatic sharding and no manual intervention
- Native vector search for AI/RAG workloads alongside transactional and analytical data
- ACID-compliant distributed transactions using two-phase commit and Raft consensus
- 99.99% high availability with automated failover via Raft consensus protocol
- Online DDL and zero-downtime schema changes
- TiDB Cloud: fully managed DBaaS on AWS, GCP, and Azure with scale-to-zero and instant branching
- Multi-tenant workload isolation with per-tenant RU (Request Unit) quotas
- Open-source under Apache 2.0 with 40K+ GitHub stars; enterprise features included
Key Use Cases8
- Replacing sharded MySQL or Aurora at scale (MySQL modernization)
- Multi-tenant SaaS platforms requiring millions of tables and schema-per-tenant isolation
- Real-time HTAP: running analytics directly on operational data without ETL
- Agentic AI backends: persistent agent memory, state management, and vector retrieval
- Fintech and payment systems requiring strong consistency and high availability
- E-commerce and loyalty platforms handling high-throughput transactional writes
- Cost reduction by consolidating separate OLTP and OLAP databases into one system
- Cloud-native microservices and Kubernetes-based infrastructure
PingCAP customer outcomes
750+ PG clusters → 16 TiDB clusters; 3M+ tables per cluster
Replaced 750+ sharded PostgreSQL clusters with 16 TiDB clusters to power the Forge platform, scaling to 3M+ tables and 500K concurrent connections per cluster with zero-downtime.
10x P99 latency reduction; 50%+ infrastructure cost savings
Modernized its graph service with TiDB, eliminating manual sharding and achieving dramatic latency and cost improvements.
96% less maintenance; <60 seconds cutover downtime per service
A team of six engineers migrated nearly 100 services from Amazon Aurora to TiDB over 2.5 years, drastically reducing maintenance overhead and per-service cutover downtime.
35K QPS sustained; 3x data compression
Replaced MySQL with TiDB to power order creation, billing, and payments across 500+ cities, sustaining high throughput with significant data compression and 99.99% uptime during 400% growth.
~500K containers replaced; 90% less overhead
Replaced nearly 500,000 database containers with a single TiDB Cloud instance, unifying vectors, documents, and relational data for its open-source LLM platform.
25,000 writes/sec; 17ms average response time
Adopted TiDB to power its loyalty program aggregation layer, handling high write throughput and concurrent queries with low average response time.
Recent Trend
How AI describes PingCAP3
TiDB (via TiDB Data Migration & TiCDC) If your legacy database is MySQL , TiDB (by PingCAP) is designed as a drop-in, wire-compatible distributed SQL replacement.
Which distributed SQL platforms support migrating from a legacy relational database with minimal downtime for a production application?
TiDB (PingCAP) A hybrid transactional/analytical processing (HTAP) database with MySQL compatibility.
Which globally distributed SQL databases are worth evaluating for a latency-sensitive SaaS product compared to a traditional single-region setup?
...The leading databases that successfully navigate this mixed territory utilize specialized hybrid architectures rather than purely raw columnar formats: ### TiDB (by PingCAP) * How it works: TiDB uses a true dual-storage engine architecture.
Which columnar databases handle mixed OLAP and OLTP workloads well — when does it make sense to use one over a standard row-store?
Most cited sources7
- P22
Best Distributed SQL Databases 2026 | TiDB
pingcap.com·Blog Post
- P21
Best Databases for SaaS Applications 2026
pingcap.com·Article
- P11
Distributed SQL Database: Architecture, Scale, High Availability
pingcap.com·Blog Post
- P4
Simplifying Disaster Recovery with Distributed SQL ...
pingcap.com·Blog Post
- D3
HTAP Queries | TiDB Docs
docs.pingcap.com·Documentation
- P3
Best Vector Database for RAG (2026 Guide) | TiDB
pingcap.com·Article
Alternatives in Databases & Data Infrastructure6
PingCAP positions TiDB as the premier open-source, MySQL-compatible distributed SQL database for organizations that have outgrown single-node relational databases and need horizontal scalability, HTAP (simultaneous OLTP and OLAP), and high availability without sharding complexity.
- Unlike pure OLTP competitors (e.g., PlanetScale) or pure analytics engines, TiDB's dual TiKV (row-store) and TiFlash (column-store) architecture handles both transactional and analytical workloads in one system, eliminating ETL pipelines.
- PingCAP increasingly targets agentic AI workloads, positioning TiDB as 'the database for AI agents' with native vector search, ACID consistency, elastic autoscaling, and multi-tenant isolation—differentiating from Postgres-based competitors by emphasizing MySQL compatibility and schema scalability proven at millions-of-tables scale (e.g., Atlassian Forge).
Reviews
Praised
- Horizontal scalability without manual sharding
- MySQL compatibility enabling low-friction migrations
- HTAP: real-time analytics on transactional data without ETL
- High availability and 99.99% uptime
- Active open-source community and documentation
- Strong enterprise support and responsiveness
- Online DDL with zero-downtime schema changes
- Cost-effective fully managed cloud service (TiDB Cloud)
Criticized
- Missing MySQL features: no stored procedures, triggers, or user-defined functions
- Overkill and resource-intensive for small-scale or simple workloads
- Performance tuning required to reach optimal high-throughput results
- Longer implementation and ramp-up time (~5 months per G2 averages)
- TiDB Cloud Starter/Essential feature gaps vs. Dedicated (no CMEK, no VPC peering, no audit logging)
- Higher operational complexity compared to single-node MySQL
PingCAP's TiDB earns consistently high marks from enterprise users on both Gartner Peer Insights and G2. As of March 2025, PingCAP was the sole vendor in Gartner's Cloud DBMS Voice of the Customer report to receive a 4.9/5 overall peer rating, earning Customers' Choice recognition in both 2024 and 2025. On G2, TiDB holds a 4.6/5 rating across 67 verified reviews and was named a Leader in three G2 Summer 2025 Grid reports (DBaaS, DBMS, and Relational Databases). Users consistently praise horizontal scalability and MySQL compatibility. Criticisms include tuning complexity, longer ramp-up time, and missing MySQL features (stored procedures, triggers).
Pricing
TiDB Cloud Starter: free tier with 25 GiB row storage, 25 GiB column storage, and 250M Request Units (RUs) per month per organization; additional storage at $0.20/GiB and $0.10/1M RUs; supports scale-to-zero. TiDB Cloud Essential (preview): usage-based autoscaling compute up to 100K RU, point-in-time backup, 99.99% multi-zone availability; approximately $20/day for a small production workload. TiDB Cloud Dedicated: starts at $0.22/hr (approximately $1,376/month for a 4 vCPU baseline configuration); available on AWS, GCP, and Azure; PCI-DSS and SOC 2 Type II compliant. TiDB Self-Managed: pricing upon request; supports on-premises, private cloud, and hybrid environments. TiDB Community (open-source): free to download and self-host under Apache 2.0.
Limitations
- TiDB does not support MySQL stored procedures, triggers, or user-defined functions, which can block lift-and-shift migrations for legacy MySQL workloads that rely on these features.
- The distributed architecture introduces higher baseline resource requirements and operational complexity compared to single-node MySQL, making it potentially overkill for small or low-traffic applications.
- TiDB Cloud Starter and Essential tiers have feature gaps relative to Dedicated, including no VPC Peering, no customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), no database audit logging (Starter), no third-party monitoring integrations, and connection idle timeout limits.
- Typical implementation time is reported at ~5 months on G2.
- Some users note the need for performance tuning before achieving optimal high-throughput results.
Frequently asked questions
Topic coverageCoverage by buyer topic
Topic Coverage
Prompt-Level Results
| Prompt | Bing Copilot | Perplexity | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode | Gemini Search | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capability3/5 cited (60%) | ||||||
Which globally distributed SQL databases are worth evaluating for a latency-sensitive SaaS product compared to a traditional single-region setup? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand and a competitor were cited | Your brand and a competitor were cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What in-memory caching tools integrate best with persistent databases — and which are worth adding versus just optimizing primary database queries? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which managed database platforms offer the best multi-region replication with automatic conflict resolution for write-write scenarios? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What are the best dedicated vector databases, and how do they compare to adding vector search extensions to an existing relational database? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which columnar databases handle mixed OLAP and OLTP workloads well — when does it make sense to use one over a standard row-store? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Your brand and a competitor were cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Developer Experience1/5 cited (20%) | ||||||
Which cloud-native database platforms handle connection pooling best for serverless workloads with unpredictable connection spikes? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which ORMs and query builders offer the best TypeScript experience for a distributed SQL database? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which time-series databases have the best query authoring and debugging experience for teams coming from relational databases? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which document databases handle schema evolution most smoothly — without requiring migration scripts for every change? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which developer-focused databases offer the best local development experience that actually mirrors the production setup? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Integrations & Ecosystem0/5 cited (0%) | ||||||
Which developer-focused database platforms integrate best with IaC tools so database provisioning and config can be version-controlled? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What tools sync data from a primary operational database to an analytics warehouse for real-time reporting without heavy ETL infrastructure? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which cloud database platforms support change data capture for streaming row-level changes to a message queue or event bus with low latency? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which managed database platforms have the best ORM and query builder compatibility for JavaScript and Python ecosystems? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which managed database platforms make multi-cloud portability practical — so moving between cloud providers isn't a nightmare? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Performance & Reliability3/5 cited (60%) | ||||||
Which managed database services offer the best backup and point-in-time recovery for production applications handling financial transactions? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which serverless database platforms maintain the best read/write throughput under sustained load with reliable autoscaling? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What tools and benchmarks help compare database platforms for high-concurrency transactional workloads before committing to one? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which time-series databases maintain query performance best at 10 million events per second ingestion over long retention periods? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which distributed SQL databases handle automatic failover most reliably when a node goes down — with the fastest recovery times? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Setup & First Run1/5 cited (20%) | ||||||
What's the fastest serverless relational database to spin up and connect to a Node.js backend for a new SaaS app? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which distributed SQL platforms support migrating from a legacy relational database with minimal downtime for a production application? | A competitor was cited | Your brand and a competitor were cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
I'm evaluating managed cloud databases versus self-hosted options for a seed-stage product — what should I look at? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which developer-focused database platforms handle schema migrations with CI/CD pipeline tooling out of the box? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which database platforms support branching so I can get a fresh isolated database copy per pull request for feature development? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Turn this matrix into daily prompt monitoring.
Track prompt changesVertical Ranking
| # | Brand | PresencePres. | Share of VoiceSoV | DocsDocs | BlogBlog | MentionsMent. | Avg PosPos | Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PingCAP | 6.7% | 23.0% | 0.7% | 2.0% | 6.0% | #4.7 | +0.28 |
| 2 | CockroachDB | 5.3% | 14.9% | 0.7% | 2.7% | 1.3% | #3.0 | +0.33 |
| 3 | Supabase | 4.7% | 16.2% | 4.0% | 0.7% | 18.7% | #2.8 | +0.71 |
| 4 | ClickHouse | 4.0% | 12.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.0% | #3.9 | +0.38 |
| 5 | MongoDB | 2.7% | 6.8% | 2.0% | 0.0% | 27.3% | #2.6 | +0.59 |
| 6 | QuestDB | 2.7% | 8.1% | 0.0% | 2.7% | 5.3% | #3.0 | +0.67 |
| 7 | PlanetScale | 2.0% | 6.8% | 1.3% | 0.0% | 18.0% | #4.6 | +0.82 |
| 8 | Timescale | 1.3% | 2.7% | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.7% | #7.0 | +0.68 |
| 9 | Xata | 1.3% | 2.7% | 0.0% | 1.3% | 2.7% | #8.5 | +0.60 |
| 10 | Fauna | 0.7% | 1.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.3% | #1.0 | +0.20 |
| 11 | Neon | 0.7% | 1.4% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 22.7% | #1.0 | +0.90 |
| 12 | Redis | 0.7% | 1.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 12.7% | #2.0 | +0.00 |
| 13 | SingleStore | 0.7% | 1.4% | 0.0% | 0.7% | 5.3% | #3.0 | +0.20 |
| 14 | Turso | 0.7% | 1.4% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 6.7% | #5.0 | +0.85 |
| 15 | Gel | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | — |
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