readme: restructure the README.md (pingcap#56830)

Author: shizn

README.md

@@ -1,123 +1,116 @@
 <div align="center">
-
 <a href='https://www.pingcap.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb'>
-<img src="docs/tidb-logo-with-text.png" alt="TiDB, a distributed SQL database" height=100></img>
+<img src="docs/tidb-logo.png" alt="TiDB, a distributed SQL database" height=100></img>
 </a>
-<br></br>
 
-[![LICENSE](https://img.shields.io/github/license/pingcap/tidb.svg)](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/master/LICENSE)
+---
+
+[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-Apache_2.0-blue.svg)](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/master/LICENSE)
 [![Language](https://img.shields.io/badge/Language-Go-blue.svg)](https://golang.org/)
 [![Build Status](https://prow.tidb.net/badge.svg?jobs=pingcap/tidb/merged_build)](https://prow.tidb.net/?repo=pingcap%2Ftidb&type=postsubmit&job=pingcap%2Ftidb%2Fmerged_build)
 [![Go Report Card](https://goreportcard.com/badge/github.com/pingcap/tidb)](https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/pingcap/tidb)
 [![GitHub release](https://img.shields.io/github/tag/pingcap/tidb.svg?label=release)](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/releases)
-[![GitHub release date](https://img.shields.io/github/release-date/pingcap/tidb.svg)](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/releases)
-[![Coverage Status](https://codecov.io/gh/pingcap/tidb/branch/master/graph/badge.svg)](https://codecov.io/gh/pingcap/tidb)
-[![GoDoc](https://img.shields.io/badge/Godoc-reference-blue.svg)](https://godoc.org/github.com/pingcap/tidb)
+</div>
 
-<div>
+# TiDB
 
-[![Official Website](<https://img.shields.io/badge/-Visit%20the%20Official%20Website%20%E2%86%92-rgb(21,204,116)?style=for-the-badge>)](https://www.pingcap.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb_readme)
-[![Playground](<https://img.shields.io/badge/-Try%20It%20Online%20%E2%86%92-rgb(84,56,255)?style=for-the-badge>)](https://play.tidbcloud.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb_readme)
+TiDB (/’taɪdiːbi:/, "Ti" stands for Titanium) is an open-source, cloud-native, distributed SQL database designed for high availability, horizontal and vertical scalability, strong consistency, and high performance.
 
-</div>
+- [Key Features](#key-features)
+- [Quick Start](#quick-start)
+- [Need Help?](#need-help)
+- [Architecture](#architecture)
+- [Contributing](#contributing)
+- [License](#license)
+- [See Also](#see-also)
+- [Acknowledgments](#acknowledgments)
 
----
+## Key Features
 
-<div>
-    <a href="https://x.com/tidb_developer"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/- @TiDB__Developer -424549?style=social&logo=x" height=25></a>
-    &nbsp;
-    <a href="https://ask.pingcap.com/"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/- Forum -red?style=social&logo=discourse" height=25></a>
-    &nbsp;
-    <a href="https://discord.gg/KVRZBR2DrG?utm_source=github"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/- Discord -red?style=social&logo=discord" height=25></a>
-    &nbsp;
-    <a href="https://slack.tidb.io/invite?team=tidb-community&channel=everyone&ref=pingcap-tidb"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/-Slack-red?style=social&logo=slack" height=25></a>
-    &nbsp;
-    <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/tidb"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/-Stack Overflow-red?style=social&logo=stackoverflow" height=25></a>
-</div>
+- **[Distributed Transactions](https://www.pingcap.com/blog/distributed-transactions-tidb?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: TiDB uses a two-phase commit protocol to ensure ACID compliance, providing strong consistency. Transactions span multiple nodes, and TiDB's distributed nature ensures data correctness even in the presence of network partitions or node failures.
 
-<br />
+- **[Horizontal and Vertical Scalability](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/scale-tidb-using-tiup?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: TiDB can be scaled horizontally by adding more nodes or vertically by increasing resources of existing nodes, all without downtime. TiDB's architecture separates computing from storage, enabling you to adjust both independently as needed for flexibility and growth.
 
-</div>
+- **[High Availability](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/high-availability-with-multi-az?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: Built-in Raft consensus protocol ensures reliability and automated failover. Data is stored in multiple replicas, and transactions are committed only after writing to the majority of replicas, guaranteeing strong consistency and availability, even if some replicas fail. Geographic placement of replicas can be configured for different disaster tolerance levels.
 
-## What is TiDB?
+- **[Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing (HTAP)](https://www.pingcap.com/blog/htap-demystified-defining-modern-data-architecture-tidb?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: TiDB provides two storage engines: TiKV, a row-based storage engine, and TiFlash, a columnar storage engine. TiFlash uses the Multi-Raft Learner protocol to replicate data from TiKV in real time, ensuring consistent data between the TiKV row-based storage engine and the TiFlash columnar storage engine. The TiDB Server coordinates query execution across both TiKV and TiFlash to optimize performance.
 
-TiDB (/’taɪdiːbi:/, "Ti" stands for Titanium) is an open-source distributed SQL database that supports Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP) workloads. It is MySQL compatible and features horizontal scalability, strong consistency, and high availability.
+- **[Cloud-Native](https://www.pingcap.com/cloud-native?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: TiDB can be deployed in public clouds, on-premises, or natively in Kubernetes. [TiDB Operator](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb-in-kubernetes/stable/tidb-operator-overview/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb) helps manage TiDB on Kubernetes, automating cluster operations, while [TiDB Cloud](https://tidbcloud.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb) provides a fully-managed service for easy and economical deployment, allowing users to set up clusters with just a few clicks.
 
-- [Key features](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/overview#key-features)
-- [Architecture](#architecture)
-- [MySQL compatibility](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/mysql-compatibility)
+- **[MySQL Compatibility](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/mysql-compatibility?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: TiDB is compatible with MySQL 8.0, allowing you to use familiar protocols, frameworks and tools. You can migrate applications to TiDB without changing any code, or with minimal modifications. Additionally, TiDB provides a suite of [data migration tools](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/ecosystem-tool-user-guide?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb) to help easily migrate application data into TiDB.
 
-See what TiDB is capable of ONLINE at the [TiDB Playground](https://play.tidbcloud.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb_readme).
+- **[Open Source Commitment](https://www.pingcap.com/blog/open-source-is-in-our-dna-reaffirming-tidb-commitment?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)**: Open source is at the core of TiDB's identity. All source code is available on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license, including enterprise-grade features. TiDB is built with the belief that open source enables transparency, innovation, and collaboration. We actively encourage contributions from the community to help build a vibrant and inclusive ecosystem, reaffirming our commitment to open development and accessibility for everyone.
 
-For more details and the latest updates, see the [TiDB documentation](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable) and [release notes](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/dev/release-notes).
+## Quick start
 
-For future plans, see the [TiDB roadmap](roadmap.md).
+> [!Tip]  
+> As part of our commitment to open source, we want to reward all GitHub users. In addition to the free tier, you can get up to $2000 in TiDB Cloud Serverless credits for your open-source contributions - [Claim here](https://ossinsight.io/open-source-heroes/?utm_source=ossinsight&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=plg_OSScontribution_credit_05).
 
-## Quick start
+1. Start a TiDB Cluser
 
-### Start with TiDB Cloud
+    - **On Local Playground**. To start a local test cluster, please refer to the [TiDB quick start guide](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/quick-start-with-tidb#deploy-a-local-test-cluster?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-TiDB Cloud is the fully-managed service of TiDB, currently available on AWS and GCP.
+    - **On Kubernetes**. TiDB can be easily deployed in a self-managed Kubernetes environment or Kubernetes services on public clouds using TiDB Operator. For more details, please refer to the [TiDB on Kubernetes quick start guide](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb-in-kubernetes/stable/get-started?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-Quickly check out TiDB Cloud with [a free trial](https://tidbcloud.com/free-trial).
+    - **Using TiDB Cloud (Recommended)**. TiDB Cloud offers a fully managed version of TiDB with a free tier, no credit card required, so you can get a free cluster in seconds and start easily: [Sign up for TiDB Cloud](https://tidbcloud.com/free-trial?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-See the [TiDB Cloud Quick Start Guide](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/tidb-cloud-quickstart).
+2. Learn About TiDB SQL: To explore the SQL capabilities of TiDB, refer to the [TiDB SQL documentation](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/sql-statement-overview?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-### Start with TiDB
+3. Use MySQL Driver or ORM to [Build an App with TiDB with TiDB](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/dev-guide-overview?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-See [TiDB Quick Start Guide](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/quick-start-with-tidb).
+4. Explore key features, such as [data migration](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/tidb-cloud-migration-overview?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), [changefeed](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/changefeed-overview?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), [vector search](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/vector-search-overview?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), [HTAP](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/tidb-cloud-htap-quickstart?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), [disaster recovery](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/dr-solution-introduction?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), etc.
 
-### Start developing with TiDB
 
-See [TiDB Developer Guide](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/dev-guide-overview) and [TiDB Cloud Developer Guide](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud/dev-guide-overview).
+## Need Help?
 
-## Community
+- You can connect with TiDB users, ask questions, find answers, and help others on our community platforms: [Discord](https://discord.gg/KVRZBR2DrG?utm_source=github), Slack ([English](https://slack.tidb.io/invite?team=tidb-community&channel=everyone&ref=pingcap-tidb), [Japanese](https://slack.tidb.io/invite?team=tidb-community&channel=tidb-japan&ref=github-tidb)), [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/tidb), TiDB Forum ([English](https://ask.pingcap.com/), [Chinese](https://asktug.com)), X [@PingCAP](https://twitter.com/PingCAP)
 
-You can join the following groups or channels to discuss or ask questions about TiDB, and to keep yourself informed of the latest TiDB updates:
+- For filing bugs, suggesting improvements, or requesting new features, use [Github Issues](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues) or join discussions on [Github Discussions](https://github.com/orgs/pingcap/discussions).
 
-- Seek help when you use TiDB
-  - TiDB Forum: [English](https://ask.pingcap.com/), [Chinese](https://asktug.com)
-  - [Discord](https://discord.gg/KVRZBR2DrG?utm_source=github)
-  - Slack channels: [#everyone](https://slack.tidb.io/invite?team=tidb-community&channel=everyone&ref=pingcap-tidb) (English), [#tidb-japan](https://slack.tidb.io/invite?team=tidb-community&channel=tidb-japan&ref=github-tidb) (Japanese)
-  - [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/tidb) (questions tagged with #tidb)
-- Discuss TiDB's implementation and design
-  - [TiDB Internals forum](https://internals.tidb.io/)
-- Get the latest TiDB news or updates
-    - Follow [@PingCAP](https://twitter.com/PingCAP) on Twitter
-    - Read the PingCAP [English Blog](https://www.pingcap.com/blog/?from=en) or [Chinese Blog](https://cn.pingcap.com/blog/)
+- To troubleshoot TiDB, refer to [Toubleshooting documentation](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/tidb-troubleshooting-map?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-For support, please contact [PingCAP](http://bit.ly/contact_us_via_github).
+## Architecture
 
-## Contributing
+![TiDB architecture](./docs/tidb-architecture.png)
 
-The [community repository](https://github.com/pingcap/community) hosts all information about the TiDB community, including [how to contribute](https://github.com/pingcap/community/blob/master/contributors/README.md) to TiDB, how the TiDB community is governed, how [teams](https://github.com/pingcap/community/blob/master/teams/README.md) are organized.
+Learn more details about TiDB architecture in our [Docs](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable/tidb-architecture?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb).
 
-Contributions are welcomed and greatly appreciated. You can get started with one of the [good first issues](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22) or [help wanted issues](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22help+wanted%22). For more details on typical contribution workflows, see [Contribute to TiDB](https://pingcap.github.io/tidb-dev-guide/contribute-to-tidb/introduction.html). For more contributing information about where to start, click the contributor icon below.
+## Contributing
 
-[<img src="docs/contribution-map.png" alt="contribution-map" width="180">](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb-map/blob/master/maps/contribution-map.md#tidb-is-an-open-source-distributed-htap-database-compatible-with-the-mysql-protocol)
+TiDB is built on a commitment to open source, and we welcome contributions from everyone. Whether you are interested in improving documentation, fixing bugs, or developing new features, we invite you to shape the future of TiDB.
 
-Every contributor is welcome to claim their contribution swag by filling in and submitting this [form](https://forms.pingcap.com/f/tidb-contribution-swag).
+- See our [Contributor Guide](https://github.com/pingcap/community/blob/master/contributors/README.md#how-to-contribute) and [TiDB Development Guide](https://pingcap.github.io/tidb-dev-guide/index.html) to get started.
 
-<a href="https://next.ossinsight.io/widgets/official/compose-activity-trends?repo_id=41986369" target="_blank" style="display: block" align="center">
-  <picture>
-    <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="https://next.ossinsight.io/widgets/official/compose-activity-trends/thumbnail.png?repo_id=41986369&image_size=auto&color_scheme=dark" width="822" height="auto">
-    <img alt="Activity Trends of pingcap/tidb - Last 28 days" src="https://next.ossinsight.io/widgets/official/compose-activity-trends/thumbnail.png?repo_id=41986369&image_size=auto&color_scheme=light" width="822" height="auto">
-  </picture>
-</a>
+- If you're looking for issues to work on, try looking at the [good first issues](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22) or [help wanted issues](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22help+wanted%22).
 
-## Case studies
+- The [contribution map](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb-map/blob/master/maps/contribution-map.md#a-map-that-guides-what-and-how-contributors-can-contribute) lists everything you can contribute.
 
-- [Case studies in English](https://www.pingcap.com/customers/)
-- [中文用户案例](https://cn.pingcap.com/case/)
+- The [community repository](https://github.com/pingcap/community) contains everything else you need.
 
-## Architecture
+- Don't forget to claim your contribution swag by filling in and submitting this [form](https://forms.pingcap.com/f/tidb-contribution-swag).
 
-![TiDB architecture](./docs/tidb-architecture.png)
+
+<a href="https://next.ossinsight.io/widgets/official/compose-recent-active-contributors?repo_id=41986369&limit=30" target="_blank" style="display: block" align="center">
+  <picture>
+    <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="https://next.ossinsight.io/widgets/official/compose-recent-active-contributors/thumbnail.png?repo_id=41986369&limit=30&image_size=auto&color_scheme=dark" width="655" height="auto">
+    <img alt="Active Contributors of pingcap/tidb - Last 28 days" src="https://next.ossinsight.io/widgets/official/compose-recent-active-contributors/thumbnail.png?repo_id=41986369&limit=30&image_size=auto&color_scheme=light" width="655" height="auto">
+  </picture>
+</a>
 
 ## License
 
 TiDB is under the Apache 2.0 license. See the [LICENSE](./LICENSE) file for details.
 
+## See Also
+
+- [TiDB Online Playgroud](https://play.tidbcloud.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb_readme)
+- TiDB Case Studies: [TiDB Customers](https://www.pingcap.com/customers/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), [TiDB 事例記事](https://pingcap.co.jp/case-study/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb), [TiDB 中文用户案例](https://cn.pingcap.com/case/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)
+- [TiDB User Documentation](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)
+- [TiDB Design Docs](/docs/design)
+- [TiDB Release Notes](https://docs.pingcap.com/tidb/dev/release-notes?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)
+- [TiDB Blog](https://www.pingcap.com/blog/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=tidb)
+- [TiDB Roadmap](roadmap.md)
+
 ## Acknowledgments
 
 - Thanks [cznic](https://github.com/cznic) for providing some great open source tools.