# vitessio/vitess

Vitess is a database clustering system for horizontal scaling of MySQL.

Repository: https://github.com/vitessio/vitess
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/vitess
Homepage: http://vitess.io
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: cncf, mysql, database-cluster, shard, kubernetes, vitess
Last push: 2026-08-27T00:14:44+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 96/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 90, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4815, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 70, "gap_med": 0.0, "n_releases_24m": 35}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 21259, forks 2385 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:31.502830+00:00)

## What it is
Vitess is a cloud-native database clustering system that horizontally scales MySQL through transparent, generalized sharding. It provides query routing, connection pooling, high availability, and near-zero-downtime resharding, and is a CNCF graduated project originally built for YouTube.

## Use cases
- horizontally scale a MySQL database beyond a single server
- shard MySQL without changing application queries
- live resharding with near-zero downtime
- automate MySQL primary failover for high availability
- manage schema changes across many MySQL shards
- run a MySQL-compatible database on Kubernetes
- pool connections and improve MySQL performance at high concurrency
- migrate an existing MySQL database into a sharded cluster

## When to choose
- your MySQL workload has outgrown vertical scaling and needs sharding
- you need transparent sharding so application code stays database-agnostic
- you operate large MySQL fleets on Kubernetes and want automated failover and resharding
- you need high connection counts with pooling and query rewriting
- you want a battle-tested system proven at YouTube, Slack, and Square scale

## When to avoid
- your dataset fits comfortably on a single MySQL server
- you need a fully managed database without operational overhead
- your application relies on niche MySQL features not yet supported by Vitess
- you want a simple embedded or lightweight database for small projects
- you cannot operate additional infrastructure like etcd and cluster management components

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: database, database-driver, caching, monitoring, deployment, container-orchestration
- domain: databases, microservices, cloud-computing, self-hosted
- platform: go, cloud, self-hosted
- tags: mysql, sharding, database-clustering, horizontal-scaling, cncf, high-availability, resharding, vtgate, vreplication, kubernetes-operator, devops, linux, kubernetes, docker

## Member repositories
- vitessio/vitess (main) score 96

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:31.502830+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:58:27.065760+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/vitessio/vitess (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:31.502830+00:00, sha 628dbf5ee7aa)
  - homepage: http://vitess.io (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.099946+00:00, sha 2e9ba3c23b4d)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.102736+00:00, sha 66e6578f9a5f)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/docs/get-started/operator (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.107191+00:00, sha c80a146c45b3)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/docs/get-started/local (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.110068+00:00, sha aeb3a1ede911)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/docs/learning-resources (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.112480+00:00, sha 1a405f8a0718)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/changelog (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.105191+00:00, sha 63e03ab4385a)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/changelog/2024-08-23-recursive-cte (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.114941+00:00, sha 7e0dd5b04bc0)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/changelog/2024-07-22-an-interesting-optimization (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.117172+00:00, sha 12a07b4f8878)
  - site_page: https://vitess.io/changelog/2023-04-24-schemadiff (fetched 2026-08-29T07:57:08.119248+00:00, sha 2c17790eb523)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.