Source: https://seerepo.com/compare/juanfont/headscale/vs/pingcap/tidb
Markdown source: https://seerepo.com/compare/juanfont/headscale/vs/pingcap/tidb.md
Description: headscale and tidb share 5 technologies: gorm.io/gorm, golang.org/x/oauth2, Prometheus, github.com/prometheus/common, and go.uber.org/zap. Both are written in Go.

# headscale vs tidb

headscale and tidb share 5 technologies: gorm.io/gorm, golang.org/x/oauth2, Prometheus, github.com/prometheus/common, and go.uber.org/zap. Both are written in Go.

- [juanfont/headscale](https://seerepo.com/r/juanfont/headscale): An open source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server
- [pingcap/tidb](https://seerepo.com/r/pingcap/tidb): TiDB is built for agentic workloads that grow unpredictably, with ACID guarantees and native support for transactions, analytics, and vector search. No data silos. No noisy neighbors. No infrastructure ceiling.

## What they share and what sets them apart

- In common: gorm.io/gorm, golang.org/x/oauth2, Prometheus, github.com/prometheus/common, go.uber.org/zap
- Only in headscale: chi, HashiCorp, Postgres, github.com/glebarez/sqlite, SQLite, github.com/coreos/go-oidc/v3, github.com/tailscale/hujson, github.com/rs/zerolog, Docker, github.com/libdns/cloudflare
- Only in tidb: net/http, Gorilla, s3, TiDB, etcd, MySQL, github.com/cockroachdb/pebble, go.etcd.io/etcd/api/v3, go.etcd.io/etcd/server/v3, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/feature/s3/manager, Dgraph, github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/storage/azblob, github.com/jellydator/ttlcache/v3, go.etcd.io/etcd/client/pkg/v3, Google, github.com/cheggaaa/pb/v3, github.com/jedib0t/go-pretty/v6, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/credentials, github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/azidentity, github.com/go-ldap/ldap/v3, openai-go, go.opencensus.io, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2, github.com/prometheus/client_model, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/config, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/cloudwatch, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/ec2, github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/sts, github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/azcore, github.com/grafana/pyroscope-go, github.com/prometheus/prometheus, github.com/tencentcloud/tencentcloud-sdk-go/tencentcloud/common

## Side by side

| | headscale | tidb |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 222,641 lines written, 172 code files | 1,752,108 lines written, 1,549 code files |
| Who writes it | 0.3% of its commits signed by AI. With Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and CodeRabbit | 0% of its commits signed by AI. With GitHub Copilot |
| Activity | Last push November 5, 2026, 4,364 commits, 45,413 stars | Last push November 6, 2026, 27,911 commits, 40,711 stars |
| Tests | 257 test files. 72.1% of its code files have a test that imports them | 2,905 test files. 90.3% of its code files have a test that imports them |

- Size: Lines written by people and agents, without generated ones; code files, without tests.
- Who writes it: A commit counts as AI's when it carries its signature: a Co-Authored-By line, its author name or the merge of its branch.
- Activity: From GitHub and its history, on the day SeeRepo read it.
- Tests: The files that test the code, and the share of code files a test imports.

## Frequently asked questions

### Which is bigger, headscale or tidb?

tidb, with 1,752,108 lines written; headscale has 222,641.

The proof: [pingcap/tidb's code at commit a5a597d](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/tree/a5a597dfb7921e43a43065f197d064b2af92d85e)

### Which has more GitHub stars, headscale or tidb?

headscale, with 45,413 stars; tidb has 40,711.

The proof: [juanfont/headscale on GitHub](https://github.com/juanfont/headscale)

### Which has more tests, headscale or tidb?

tidb, with 2,905 test files; headscale has 257.

The proof: [pingcap/tidb's code at commit a5a597d](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/tree/a5a597dfb7921e43a43065f197d064b2af92d85e)

### Which was updated more recently, headscale or tidb?

tidb: its last push was on November 6, 2026, and headscale's on November 5, 2026.

The proof: [pingcap/tidb's commits on GitHub](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/commits)

### Which has more commits signed by AI, headscale or tidb?

headscale: an AI signed 0.3% of its commits, with Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and CodeRabbit.

## Sources

- juanfont/headscale: Read on November 6, 2026, at commit 0bdc332 (https://github.com/juanfont/headscale/tree/0bdc332886b3692b88e0c3623f37c2c07a00d262)
- pingcap/tidb: Read on November 6, 2026, at commit a5a597d (https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/tree/a5a597dfb7921e43a43065f197d064b2af92d85e)

## What is your repo built with?

Any public repo, with no account: https://seerepo.com/r/owner/repo/built, with the owner and name it has on GitHub.