Create a TiDB Cluster

This tutorial guides you through signing up and creating a TiDB cluster.

Step 1. Create a TiDB Cloud account

If you do not have a TiDB Cloud account, click here to sign up for an account.
- For Google users, you can also sign up with Google. To do that, click Sign up with Google on the sign up page. Your email address and password will be managed by Google and cannot be changed using TiDB Cloud console.
- For GitHub users, you can also sign up with GitHub. To do that, click Sign up with GitHub on the sign up page. Your email address and password will be managed by GitHub and cannot be changed using TiDB Cloud console.
- For AWS Marketplace users, you can also sign up through AWS Marketplace. To do that, search for TiDB Cloud in AWS Marketplace, subscribe to TiDB Cloud, and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your TiDB Cloud account.
Log in to your TiDB Cloud account.

Step 2. Select a cluster tier

TiDB Cloud provides the following two cluster tier options. Before creating a TiDB cluster, consider which option suits your need better:

Developer Tier
The TiDB Cloud Developer Tier is a one-year free trial of TiDB Cloud, the fully managed service of TiDB. You can use Developer Tier clusters for non-production workloads such as prototype applications, hackathons, academic courses, or to provide a temporary data service for your datasets.
Dedicated Tier
The TiDB Cloud Dedicated Tier is dedicated for production use with the benefits of cross-zone high availability, horizontal scaling, and HTAP.

For more information about the two options, see Select Your Cluster Tier.

Step 3. Use your default project or create a new project

If you are an organization owner, once you log in to TiDB Cloud, you have a default project. If you do not want to use the default project, you can take the following steps to create a new one:

Click the account name in the upper-right corner of the TiDB Cloud console.
Click Organization Settings.
The Projects tab is displayed by default.
Click Create New Project.
Enter a name for your project, and then click Confirm.
To return to the cluster page, click the TiDB Cloud logo in the upper-left corner of the window.

If you are a project member, you can access only the specific projects to which your organization owner invited you, and you cannot create new projects. To check which project you belong to, take the following steps:

Click the account name in the upper-right corner of the TiDB Cloud console.
Click Organization Settings.
The Projects tab is displayed by default.
To return to the cluster page, click the TiDB Cloud logo in the upper-left corner of the window.

Step 4. Create a TiDB cluster

Developer Tier
Dedicated Tier

To create a Developer Tier cluster, take the following steps:

On the Clusters page, click Create Cluster.
On the Create Cluster page, update the default cluster name if necessary.
Note that the cloud provider of Developer Tier is AWS, and then select the region where you want to create your cluster.
View the cluster size of the Developer Tier, and then click Create.
The cluster creation process starts and your TiDB Cloud cluster will be created in approximately 5 to 15 minutes.
During the creation process, perform security settings for your cluster:
1. Click Security Settings in the upper-right corner of the cluster area.
2. In the Security Settings dialog box, set the root password and allowed IP addresses to connect to your cluster, and then click Apply.
Note
If you do not set a password, you cannot connect to the cluster.

To create a Dedicated Tier cluster, take the following steps:

On the Clusters page, click Create Cluster.
On the Create Cluster page, select Dedicated Tier, update the default cluster name and port number if necessary, choose a cloud provider and a region, and then click Next.
Note
If you signed up TiDB Cloud through AWS Marketplace, the cloud provider is AWS, and you cannot change it in TiDB Cloud.
If this is the first cluster of your current project and CIDR has not been configured for this project, you need to set the project CIDR, and then click Next. If you do not see the project CIDR field, it means that CIDR has already been configured for this project.
Note
When setting the project CIDR, avoid any conflicts with the CIDR of the VPC where your application is located. You cannot modify your project CIDR once it is set.
Configure the cluster size for TiDB, TiKV, and TiFlash (optional) respectively, and then click Next.
Confirm the cluster information on the page and the billing information in the lower-left corner.
If you have not added a payment method, click Add Credit Card in the lower-right corner.
Note
If you signed up TiDB Cloud through AWS Marketplace, you can pay through your AWS account directly but cannot add payment methods or download invoices in the TiDB Cloud portal.
Click Create.
The cluster creation process starts and the Security Settings dialog box is displayed.
In the Security Settings dialog box, set the root password and allowed IP addresses to connect to your cluster, and then click Apply.
Your TiDB Cloud cluster will be created in approximately 5 to 15 minutes.