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alibaba/AliSQL

AliSQL is a MySQL branch originated from Alibaba Group. Fetch document from Release Notes at bottom.

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README.md

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<h1 align="center">AliSQL</h1>

<p align="center">
  <strong>Alibaba's MySQL Branch with DuckDB Analytics and Native Vector Search</strong>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <em>Based on MySQL 8.0.44 and maintained by Alibaba Cloud Database Team</em>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="#key-features">Features</a> •
  <a href="#quick-start">Quick Start</a> •
  <a href="#documentation">Docs</a> •
  <a href="#roadmap">Roadmap</a> •
  <a href="#contributing">Contributing</a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="./README_zh.md">简体中文</a> | <a href="./README.md">English</a>
</p>

## About AliSQL

AliSQL is an open-source MySQL branch maintained by Alibaba Cloud Database Team. This release is based on MySQL 8.0.44 and adds a DuckDB analytical storage engine, HNSW vector indexes, Native Flashback, binlog realtime replication (BRR), and binlog optimizations while retaining the MySQL client protocol.

The [2026-10-16 update](./wiki/changes/changes-in-alisql-8.0.44.2026-10-16-en.md) introduces BRR and upgrades the embedded DuckDB snapshot to `v1.5.2-dev736`, with optional AUTO_INCREMENT and background checkpoints.

### Analytics Reference Results

The included [TPC-H SF100 results](./wiki/duckdb/duckdb-en.md#performance-benchmarks) show more than **200x speedup** over InnoDB for several queries in that test environment

</td>
<td width="33%" align="center">

### Native Vector Indexes

The `VECTOR(N)` type and HNSW indexes support vectors with up to **16,383 dimensions**

</td>
<td width="33%" align="center">

### MySQL Client Compatibility

Applications connect through the MySQL protocol and continue to use MySQL clients and drivers

</td>
</tr>
</table>

## Key Features

| Feature | Description | Status |
|---------|-------------|--------|
| **DuckDB Storage Engine** | Columnar execution and storage for analytical tables, with automatic compression | Available |
| **Vector Index (VIDX)** | Native vector storage & ANN search with HNSW, supports COSINE & EUCLIDEAN distance | Available |
| **Native Flashback** | Query historical InnoDB data with `AS OF TIMESTAMP` and retained undo snapshots | Available |
| **Large TX Optimization** | Binlog Cache Free Flush reduces commit-time I/O amplification for large InnoDB transactions | Available* |
| **Binlog Durability** | Persist Binlog Into Redo V2 reduces synchronous binlog I/O while retaining crash recovery | Available |
| **Binlog Realtime Replication (BRR)** | Transmit eligible large transactions before commit and optionally apply supported DDL and transactions early on replicas | Available, opt-in |
| **DDL Optimization** | Instant DDL, parallel B+tree construction, non-blocking locks | Planned |
| **RTO Optimization** | Accelerated crash recovery for faster instance startup | Planned |

`*` Free Flush targets eligible InnoDB transactions while DuckDB mode is inactive. With DuckDB mode enabled, commit uses the dedicated DuckDB path. BRR reuses Free Flush cache files; this does not by itself imply a Free Flush commit.

## Quick Start

### Option 1: Build from Source

```bash
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL.git
cd AliSQL

# Build (release mode)
sh build.sh -t release -d ~/alisql

# Install
make install
```

### Option 2: Set Up a DuckDB Analytical Node

> **Step-by-step guide:** [How to set up a DuckDB node](./wiki/duckdb/how-to-setup-duckdb-node-en.md)

### Initialize & Start Server

```bash
# Initialize data directory
~/alisql/bin/mysqld --initialize-insecure --datadir=~/alisql/data

# Start the server with DuckDB enabled for the example below
~/alisql/bin/mysqld --datadir=~/alisql/data --duckdb_mode=ON
```

## Usage Examples

### DuckDB for Analytics

```sql
-- Create an analytical table with DuckDB engine
CREATE TABLE sales_analytics (
    sale_date DATE,
    product_id INT,
    revenue DECIMAL(10,2),
    quantity INT
) ENGINE=DuckDB;

-- Run an analytical aggregation through DuckDB
SELECT
    DATE_FORMAT(sale_date, '%Y-%m') as month,
    SUM(revenue) as total_revenue,
    COUNT(*) as transactions
FROM sales_analytics
GROUP BY month
ORDER BY total_revenue DESC;
```

### Vector Search for AI Applications

```sql
-- Vector features are disabled by default and vector indexes require RC.
SET GLOBAL vidx_disabled = OFF;
SET SESSION transaction_isolation = 'READ-COMMITTED';

-- Create a table with a vector column
CREATE TABLE embeddings (
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    content TEXT,
    embedding VECTOR(3)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;

INSERT INTO embeddings VALUES
    (1, 'first document', VEC_FROMTEXT('[0.1,0.2,0.3]')),
    (2, 'second document', VEC_FROMTEXT('[0.2,0.1,0.4]'));

-- Create HNSW index for fast ANN search
CREATE VECTOR INDEX idx_embedding ON embeddings(embedding) DISTANCE=COSINE;

-- Find similar items using cosine distance
SELECT id, content,
       VEC_DISTANCE_COSINE(
           embedding, VEC_FROMTEXT('[0.1,0.2,0.3]')
       ) AS distance
FROM embeddings
ORDER BY distance
LIMIT 10;
```

## Build Options

| Option | Description | Default |
|--------|-------------|---------|
| `-t release\|debug` | Build type | `debug` |
| `-d <dir>` | Installation directory | `/usr/local/alisql` when writable; otherwise `$HOME/alisql` |
| `-g asan\|tsan` | Enable sanitizer (memory/thread) | disabled |
| `-c` | Enable code coverage (gcov) | disabled |

**Prerequisites:** CMake 3.x+, Python 3, GCC 7+ or Clang 5+

## Roadmap

```
Q4 2025  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
         [x] DuckDB Storage Engine  [x] Vector Index (VIDX)   [x] 8.0.44 Release

2026     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
         [x] Native Flashback       [x] Transaction & Binlog   [ ] DDL / RTO
             - AS OF TIMESTAMP          - Binlog in Redo V2       - Instant DDL
             - Undo snapshots           - Free Flush               - Fast Crash Recovery
                                        - Realtime Replication
```

## Documentation

| Document | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| [DuckDB Integration Guide](./wiki/duckdb/duckdb-en.md) | Architecture, compatibility, replication, and performance reference |
| [Vector Index Guide](./wiki/vidx/vidx_readme.md) | Native vector storage and ANN search |
| [Native Flashback Guide](./wiki/native-flashback/native-flashback-en.md) | Historical InnoDB queries and recovery |
| [Binlog in Redo Guide](./wiki/binlog-in-redo/binlog-in-redo-en.md) | Redo-backed binlog persistence and fallback rules |
| [Binlog Cache Free Flush Guide](./wiki/binlog-cache-free-flush/binlog-cache-free-flush-en.md) | Large-transaction commit path, configuration, and restrictions |
| [Binlog Realtime Replication Guide](./wiki/binlog-realtime-replication/binlog-realtime-replication-en.md) | BRR transmission, early apply, configuration, monitoring, and limitations |
| [2026-10-16 Release Notes](./wiki/changes/changes-in-alisql-8.0.44.2026-10-16-en.md) | BRR, DuckDB updates, and integration fixes |
| [Release Notes](./wiki/changes-in-alisql-8.0.44.md) | What's new in AliSQL 8.0.44 |
| [Setup DuckDB Node](./wiki/duckdb/how-to-setup-duckdb-node-en.md) | Quick setup guide for analytics |

**External Resources:**
- [MySQL 8.0 Documentation](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/)
- [DuckDB Official Docs](https://duckdb.org/docs/stable/)
- [Detailed Article (Chinese)](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_YmlV3vPc9CksumXvXWBEw)

## Alibaba Cloud RDS MySQL

Alibaba Cloud RDS MySQL provides managed versions of several AliSQL features. RDS manages engine releases, topology, data synchronization, backup, monitoring, and support. Supported versions and parameter defaults can differ from this repository; use the product documentation when operating an RDS instance.

| Feature | RDS MySQL product documentation |
|------------|---------------------------------|
| DuckDB analytical instances | [English](https://help.aliyun.com/en/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/duckdb-analysis-instance) / [中文](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/duckdb-analysis-instance) |
| Vector storage | [English](https://help.aliyun.com/en/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/vector-storage-1) / [中文](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/vector-storage-1) |
| Native Flashback | [English](https://help.aliyun.com/en/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/native-flashback) / [中文](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/native-flashback) |
| Binlog Cache Free Flush | [English](https://help.aliyun.com/en/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/binlog-cache-free-flush) / [中文](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/binlog-cache-free-flush) |
| Binlog in Redo | [English](https://help.aliyun.com/en/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/binlog-in-redo) / [中文](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/binlog-in-redo) |

The local feature guides note behavior that differs between this source tree and RDS MySQL.

## Contributing

AliSQL has been open source since August 2016 and is actively maintained by Alibaba Cloud Database Team. The current 8.0.44 feature release continues that open-source line.

Bug reports, documentation fixes, and code changes are welcome.

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch (`git checkout -b feature/my-change`).
3. Commit the change (`git commit -m 'Describe the change'`).
4. Push the branch (`git push origin feature/my-change`).
5. Open a pull request.

For bugs and feature requests, please use [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL/issues).

## Related Tools

### RDSAI CLI

[RDSAI CLI](https://github.com/aliyun/rdsai-cli) is a command-line client for AliSQL and MySQL. It accepts natural-language requests for SQL generation, execution-plan analysis, and query diagnosis.

```bash
# Install
curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aliyun/rdsai-cli/main/install.sh | sh

# Connect and ask in natural language
rdsai --host localhost -u root -p secret -D mydb
mysql> analyze index usage on users table
mysql> show me slow queries from the last hour
mysql> why this query is slow: SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE '%john%'
```

Key features:

- Natural language to SQL conversion (English/中文)
- Query optimization and diagnostics
- Execution plan analysis with `Ctrl+E`
- Multi-model LLM support (Qwen, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Anthropic, etc.)
- Performance benchmarking with automated analysis

[Project and installation instructions](https://github.com/aliyun/rdsai-cli)

## Community & Support

**GitHub Issues**

For bug reports & feature requests

[Open an Issue](https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL/issues)

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<td align="center" width="50%">

**Alibaba Cloud RDS**

Managed DuckDB analytical instances

[Learn More](https://help.aliyun.com/en/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-mysql/duckdb-analysis-instance)

</td>
</tr>
</table>

## License

AliSQL is licensed under **GPL-2.0**, the same license as MySQL.

See the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details.

## Star History

<p align="center">
  Maintained by <a href="https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/apsaradb-for-rds-mysql">Alibaba Cloud Database Team</a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL">GitHub</a> •
  <a href="https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server">MySQL</a> •
  <a href="https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb">DuckDB</a>
</p>

Repository info

Default branch: master
Latest version: AliSQL-8.0.44-3
Created: 27/07/2016
Last activity: 16/10/2026
License: Other
Open issues: 14
Watchers: 460

Topics

alisql database duckdb mysql vector

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