# Reasons For Choosing TiDB

![`smart`](ReasonsForChoosingTiDBCloud_en_002_20230407.png)

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Scalable for Mission Critical Workloads: Elastic and Robust "MySQL" for Massive Business Growth

Horizontal Scalability: Seamless scale-in & out at component level
- TiDB supports zero downtime scaling in and scaling out at every sub-component layer, which includes the compute layer, storage layer, and metadata layer. These layers are decoupled from each other and can be scaled on demand without any disruptions.

Zero Downtime: Eliminate both planned and unplanned downtime
- TiDB is purposefully designed to eliminate both planned and unplanned downtimes. It supports online scaling-in/out at every level of the component, along with online rolling updates and online DDL, and TiProxy for ensuring the connection persistence between database clients and TiDB servers. Its built-in self-healing ability is enabled at the compute, storage, and metadata layers, ensuring business continuity even when faced with software failures, hardware malfunctions, or data center outages. In addition, users can enjoy these benefits on TiDB Cloud with no additional setup.

Strong Consistency: ACID transparent at scale in distributed environment
- Similar to traditional RDBMS, TiDB offers dependable full ACID transactional support with strong consistency.

MySQL Compatibility: Migrate from MySQL ecosystem at ease
- TiDB is compatible with MySQL 5.7, meaning that in most cases, you can migrate your existing applications to TiDB without the need to alter the application code. It has already been proven in production that consolidating hundreds or even thousands of MySQL-compatible databases into a single TiDB cluster is possible.


Built-in Translytical Capability: Simplified Operational and Analytical Data Services

Dual Engine (Row + Column): Empower real-time insights from hot & cold business data
- TiDB is equipped with both row-based and columnar-based storage engines, making it optimized for handling both OLTP and analytical workloads simultaneously. With a single standard SQL interface, business analysts can easily gain insights from both online operations and cold data combined.

SQL on Big Data: Renaissance of SQL to improve data agility
- TiDB is able to efficiently store and retrieve a vast amount of data at the petabyte scale. It can be classified as a Big Data solution, made even more powerful with its support for JSON. TiDB simplifies handling of most Big Data issues with its implementation of standard SQL, and with the added support for JSON functions, it eliminates the need to incorporate specialized tools from the Big Data ecosystem. As a result, SQL is back in the driver's seat with the assistance of TiDB.

`One Size Fits All, Again`: Encapsulate the complexity of `No One Size Fits All` and reduce the re-investment
- In the field of databases, it has been widely accepted for many years that there is no universal solution that fits all since varying applications have their unique database requirements. While some require high availability and scalability, others demand high performance and low latency. Furthermore, different database technologies and configurations offer distinct advantages and limitations. Thus, it is essential to comprehend the specific needs of your application and select the appropriate database technology and configuration that optimally addresses those requirements. However, this often leads to a significant increase in management complexity, which can be further amplified in public cloud environments because of reinvestment issues.
- At TiDB's core, it is a NoSQL database that incorporates a stateless SQL layer, granting it the advantages of both NoSQL and RDBMS. It has been designed to handle the complexities associated with combining these two technologies, adhering to the principle of "No One Size Fits All" at a lower level. However, at the higher operation level, TiDB presents a single management interface as a unified database, enabling users to benefit from both approaches simultaneously. Unless your application requires extremely low latency, otherwise (most cases) TiDB is a comprehensive solution.

Zero-ETL: Lower maintenance cost
- As mentioned earlier, TiDB offers both row-based and column-based storage engines. The column-based engine is capable of automatically replicating the necessary data from the row-based engine for analytical workloads, without the need for additional ETL jobs.