Prisma vs TypeORM: Complete Comparison Guide
Compare Prisma and TypeORM on type safety, design patterns, migrations, and developer experience. Discover which TypeScript ORM is the best fit for your project.
Prisma
A modern TypeScript ORM with a schema-first approach. Prisma generates type-safe client code from a declarative schema, offers Prisma Migrate for database migrations, and Prisma Studio as a visual editor. With Prisma 7, bundle size has been reduced by 90% and cold starts have improved significantly.
TypeORM
A mature TypeScript ORM supporting both the Active Record and Data Mapper patterns. TypeORM uses decorators for entity definitions and provides extensive support for relations, migrations, and query builders. It is one of the longest-standing TypeScript ORMs with a large ecosystem.
Comparison table
| Feature | Prisma | TypeORM |
|---|---|---|
| Schema definition | Custom Prisma Schema Language — declarative and centralized | TypeScript decorators on entity classes — code-first |
| Design patterns | Unique Prisma Client pattern — neither Active Record nor Data Mapper | Active Record and Data Mapper — choice per project |
| Type safety | Full auto-generated types — compile-time safety | Type safety via decorators — runtime decorators can diverge |
| Migrations | Prisma Migrate — automatically generated from schema changes | CLI-generated migrations with manual adjustment possible |
| Raw queries | Supported via $queryRaw with tagged templates | Extensive Query Builder and raw SQL support |
| Database support | PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, SQL Server, MongoDB | PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, SQL Server, Oracle, CockroachDB |
Verdict
Prisma and TypeORM represent two generations of TypeScript ORMs. Prisma offers a more modern developer experience with auto-generated types, a declarative schema, and Prisma Studio, making it particularly productive for greenfield projects. TypeORM is more mature and offers traditional ORM patterns familiar to developers with Java or C# backgrounds. Prisma's type safety is more robust thanks to code generation, while TypeORM offers more flexibility in design patterns. For new TypeScript projects, Prisma is generally preferred.
Our recommendation
At MG Software, we choose Prisma as our ORM for new projects due to its excellent type safety, declarative schema, and productive developer experience. Prisma Studio significantly accelerates debugging and visual data inspection. We recommend TypeORM when clients have an existing codebase with TypeORM, or when specific database support like Oracle is required. For edge projects, we also consider Drizzle as an alternative to Prisma due to its smaller bundle size.
Frequently asked questions
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