Note:
This topic has been translated from a Chinese forum by GPT and might contain errors.
Original topic: 自建tidb数据库用于商业用途是否需要授权费
As mentioned, if you purchase a cloud server to deploy TiDB for commercial use, do you need to purchase a PingCAP license?
No need, the community edition is sufficient. The protocol is Mongo, which is not very cloud-friendly. If you need some SQL auditing features, you will have to pay for the commercial edition.
The community edition is free for any use, but it lacks some advanced features and does not come with official support, so you have to solve any issues on your own. The commercial edition is paid, offers more comprehensive features, and includes official product support.
Non-core system applications can use the community version of TiDB.
There is a detailed feature comparison, mainly focusing on:
- Security (such as audit functionality)
- Technical support
- Graphical platform components
and other differences.
The community edition can be used freely, but official technical support is not provided.
For enterprise use, the enterprise edition is better as it can provide official technical support in urgent situations.
So far, it feels pretty good to use. 
How is the enterprise version charged?
The community edition should be fine, you can directly collaborate with the official team for this kind of thing.
Is there a difference between the enterprise version and the community version of the software?
There are quite a few differences.
The comparison of features between the PingCAP database and the community edition has been posted above by @TiDBer_小阿飞.
There are quite a few differences between the community edition and the enterprise edition mentioned by the classmate above. We are using the community edition.
You can use it in your commercial activities without paying.
The community edition can be used freely.