16 Chinese Database Vendors, 23 Products: Insights from the Fourth National Test

Overview

The China Information Security Evaluation Center recently released the fourth‑phase national database test results, a key benchmark for the domestic "Xinchuang" (information technology innovation) ecosystem and national data‑security strategy.

1. II‑Level Certification "Bloom" Highlights Growing Technical Strength

Historically, II‑level certification was rare, awarded only to a few flagship products. In this round, several products achieved II‑level status, including DM Distributed Edition V9, Yishan Distributed Database V23 from Shenzhen Computing Science Research Institute, Huawei Cloud GaussDB (Distributed) V3.0, and ZTE GoldenDB V7. This reflects two signals: domestic databases are reaching a technical level capable of competing with international giants, and the authoritative endorsement is expanding from a handful of vendors to a broader set of high‑quality providers.

2. Scenario‑Specific and Vertical Products Emerge

The market is moving beyond a single OLTP focus. The list adds many vertical‑scenario databases, such as TimechoDB V2.0 (industrial time‑series database from Tianmu Technology) and DolphinDB V2.0 (high‑performance analytical engine). Analytic‑oriented products also appear, notably Huawei Cloud DWS (GaussDB DWS) V8 and AnalyticDB PostgreSQL V2.0 from Alibaba Cloud, filling the analytical‑database gap and enabling end‑to‑end data‑processing from transaction to analysis.

3. Enterprise Self‑Use Products "Show Their Teeth"

Two development paths exist in the domestic market: independent software vendors (e.g., DM, Kingbase) and large‑enterprise‑incubated databases. Historically, the latter served internal workloads only. In this phase, self‑use databases from major enterprises have been publicly tested, including Ping An RASESQL Centralized Database V3, China Mobile's Panwei Database V3.0, Tianyi Cloud TeleDB V5.1.9, and China UnionPay UPDRDB. Their inclusion demonstrates that they have withstood extreme traffic, high concurrency, and stringent stability requirements in production environments.

4. Certification Validity and Ongoing Iteration

Security‑reliability certifications remain valid for three years. Products that passed earlier rounds must re‑test to retain their “national‑team” status; otherwise, they risk losing eligibility for government and critical‑infrastructure procurement. The fourth list shows familiar faces like DM re‑certifying both centralized and distributed tracks, indicating a deliberate “renewal” rather than mere repeat submission.

5. Industry Reshuffling and Rational Selection

The cumulative signals indicate that the Chinese database industry has moved from chaotic growth to a deep‑technology phase where competition hinges on core kernel innovation, large‑scale production experience, and full‑stack ecosystem compatibility. Users are advised to look beyond mere inclusion in the list and assess long‑term technical evolution, autonomous code proportion, large‑cluster operation experience, and ecosystem completeness when choosing a database partner.