Connect to Your TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential Cluster

This document describes how to connect to your TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential cluster.

Tip

To learn how to connect to a TiDB Cloud Dedicated cluster, see Connect to Your TiDB Cloud Dedicated Cluster.
This document focuses on the network connection methods for TiDB Cloud Starter and TiDB Cloud Essential. To connect to TiDB via a specific tool, driver, or ORM, see Connect to TiDB.

Network connection methods

After your TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential cluster is created on TiDB Cloud, you can connect to it via one of the following methods:

Direct connections
Direct connections mean the MySQL native connection system over TCP. You can connect to your cluster using any tool that supports MySQL connection, such as MySQL client.
Data Service (beta)
TiDB Cloud provides a Data Service feature that enables you to connect to your TiDB Cloud Starter cluster hosted on AWS via an HTTPS request using a custom API endpoint. Unlike direct connections, Data Service accesses your cluster data via a RESTful API rather than raw SQL.
Serverless Driver (beta)
TiDB Cloud provides a serverless driver for JavaScript, which allows you to connect to your TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential cluster in edge environments with the same experience as direct connections.

In the preceding connection methods, you can choose your desired one based on your needs:

Connection method	User interface	Scenario
Direct connections	SQL/ORM	Long-running environment, such as Java, Node.js, and Python.
Data Service	RESTful API	All browser and application interactions.
Serverless Driver	SQL/ORM	Serverless and edge environments such as Vercel Edge Functions and Cloudflare Workers.

There are two network connection types for TiDB Cloud Starter and TiDB Cloud Essential:

Private endpoint (recommended)
Private endpoint connection provides a private endpoint to allow SQL clients in your VPC to securely access services over AWS PrivateLink, which provides highly secure and one-way access to database services with simplified network management.
Public endpoint
The standard connection exposes a public endpoint, so you can connect to your TiDB cluster via a SQL client from your laptop.
TiDB Cloud Starter and TiDB Cloud Essential require TLS connections, which ensures the security of data transmission from your applications to TiDB clusters.

The following table shows the network you can use in different connection methods:

Connection method	Network	Description
Direct connections	Public or private endpoint	Direct connections can be made via both public and private endpoints.
Data Service (beta)	/	Accessing TiDB Cloud Starter hosted on AWS via Data Service (beta) does not need to specify the network type.
Serverless Driver (beta)	Public endpoint	Serverless Driver only supports connections via public endpoint.

After you have successfully connected to your TiDB cluster, you can explore SQL statements with TiDB.