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CockroachDB vs MySQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
CockroachDB's serverless model provides cost-effective, versatile cloud solutions, offering significant savings and operational advantages over separate environments.
Sentiment score
6.3
Users experience varied ROI with MySQL due to its open-source nature, cloud or local use, and operational benefits.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
CockroachDB customer service is mixed; technical support quality varies, with users praising the AI chatbot, but responsiveness needs improvement.
Sentiment score
6.8
MySQL support is mostly community-driven and free, but Oracle's support, while effective, can be costly for smaller businesses.
The issue was resolved efficiently.
We have no issues and usually receive timely responses.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
CockroachDB excels in scalability and resource management, praised for seamless scaling from small to large, supporting diverse needs efficiently.
Sentiment score
6.7
MySQL is scalable for small to medium projects but requires enhancements and tools for effective large-scale deployment.
Meeting scalability requirements through cloud computing is an expensive affair.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
CockroachDB is stable overall, highly rated for reliability but faces challenges with protocol issues and large, complex workloads.
Sentiment score
7.7
MySQL is widely praised for reliability and performance, but occasional issues with large tables require proper maintenance and configuration.
We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar.
 

Room For Improvement

CockroachDB requires improvements in documentation, compatibility, UI features, disaster recovery, latency optimization, integration, and cost efficiency for global deployment.
MySQL needs scalability improvements, better replication, enhanced security, integration, and upgraded tools, procedures, user interface, and documentation.
For multi-region deployment, CockroachDB requires at least three plus replicas across data centers to achieve strong consistency across regions, which increases infrastructure costs including compute, storage, and networking.
When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly.
It could be more beneficial if MySQL can enhance its data masking functionality in the same way it has improved data encryption.
Oracle could improve on scalability.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find CockroachDB affordable and reliable, with flexible pricing options appealing despite some perceiving high costs.
Enterprise buyers appreciate MySQL's flexible pricing, noting affordable options compared to Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle.
Oracle has different components, so if you need security, you have to procure a different license, but here everything is inbuilt and it's not costly.
 

Valuable Features

CockroachDB provides easy setup, fault tolerance, scalability, and security, while supporting PostgreSQL compatibility for optimal performance across regions.
MySQL is popular for being open-source, SQL-compatible, scalable, easy to manage, cross-platform, with strong integration capabilities.
Security features include encryption in transit, role-based access control, and compliance with data residency laws by pinning data to specific regions.
With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment.
Security is inbuilt with the database, and clusters are also possible using MySQL.
It allows programming, writing stored procedures, creating views, constraints, and triggers easily.
 

Categories and Ranking

CockroachDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
150
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of CockroachDB is 4.1%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 7.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MySQL7.8%
CockroachDB4.1%
Other88.1%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Tringali - PeerSpot reviewer
Open source with extensive documentation and a University for training
I am a freelancer. A client of mine wanted a solution that would allow them to scale yet not abandon the familiar PostgreSQL front-end (and rewrite a part of their source code). Scalability aside, CockroachDB is a fine way forward from PostgreSQL and is not changing the client source code part of the system. If you are lucky and you do not use newer features from recent versions of PostgreSQL or PostgreSQL extensions, it's fine. There are nice-to-have features for big organizations like regional tables. At the moment, my client simply does not use these. However, the serverless offer from CockroachDB is reacting well as data grows.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers robust security and availability with impressive replication capabilities
Regarding their documentation and interface, there is room for improvement. Documentation is definitely required when running multiple databases on a cluster system. The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation. When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly. It's there, but only technical persons with deep knowledge of the MySQL database can implement it. Most of the community users or ISVs who use MySQL don't have many technical persons or DBA experts, so they face some challenges for the high availability of connecting high available databases from high available applications. That documentation should be simplified.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
6%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CockroachDB?
The subset of SQL that my client is using is completely supported.
What needs improvement with CockroachDB?
I would like CockroachDB to have more compatibility with PostgreSQL, especially with the connection string and technical integrations.
What is your primary use case for CockroachDB?
I am studying how to deploy CockroachDB and YugaByteDB, and learning some basic information about them. I am testing these databases as part of my school application to find a suitable database for...
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

Comparisons

 

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Sample Customers

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Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about CockroachDB vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.