(ActorDB developer here) Most distributed newSQL databases are an SQL layer on top of a distributed KV store. What they try to do is hide the distributed reali

(ActorDB developer here) Most distributed newSQL databases are an SQL layer on top of a distributed KV store. What they try to do is hide the distributed reality of their database so it acts like a regular database from the client side. Of course there are always caveats that might not be completely obvious but can cause terrible performance. We take the opposite approach. We make the user aware of the distributed nature and force the user to use the distributed database like a distributed database should be used. You must split your data into chunks (actors) and you have a full raft replicated SQL engine (SQLite) within that chunk. I think TiDB is comparable more to CockroachDB.