Prisma vs Drizzle vs TypeORM: Choosing a Node.js ORM

Which Node.js ORM should you use? Prisma is the most popular choice for TypeScript projects — offering excellent developer experience, auto-generated types, and the best migration tooling. Drizzle ORM is a newer, lighter alternative that stays closer to SQL and offers better performance for complex queries. TypeORM is the most mature option with decorator-based models, but has a steeper learning curve and less active development. For most TypeScript projects in 2026, Prisma is the default recommendation for its balance of DX and features. Choose Drizzle for performance-critical applications or teams who prefer SQL-like syntax.

Your ORM choice affects every developer on your team, every day, for the life of the project. It's the layer between your application logic and your database — and getting it wrong means either fighting your tooling constantly or facing a painful migration later.

We've shipped production applications with all three of these ORMs. This guide reflects that experience, including the frustrations we don't see mentioned in documentation or marketing pages.

The comparison at a glance

Schema definition: how each approach feels

This is where the day-to-day experience diverges most. Let's define the same data model — a user with posts — in each ORM.

Prisma

model User {
  id        Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  email     String   @unique
  name      String?
  posts     Post[]
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
}
 
model Post {
  id        Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  title     String
  content   String?
  published Boolean  @default(false)
  author    User     @relation(fields: [authorId], references: [id])
  authorId  Int
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
}

Prisma uses its own schema language in a .prisma file. It's clean, readable, and purpose-built for defining data models. The tradeoff: it's another language to learn (albeit a simple one), and your schema lives outside your TypeScript codebase.

Drizzle

import { pgTable, serial, text, boolean, integer, timestamp } from 'drizzle-orm/pg-core';
 
export const users = pgTable('users', {
  id: serial('id').primaryKey(),
  email: text('email').unique().notNull(),
  name: text('name'),
  createdAt: timestamp('created_at').defaultNow().notNull(),
});
 
export const posts = pgTable('posts', {
  id: serial('id').primaryKey(),
  title: text('title').notNull(),
  content: text('content'),
  published: boolean('published').default(false).notNull(),
  authorId: integer('author_id').references(() => users.id).notNull(),
  createdAt: timestamp('created_at').defaultNow().notNull(),
});

Drizzle defines schemas in TypeScript. No new language to learn. Your schema is code — it lives in your project, gets type-checked by TypeScript, and can be imported anywhere. If you're comfortable with SQL, this reads naturally.

TypeORM

import { Entity, PrimaryGeneratedColumn, Column, OneToMany, ManyToOne, CreateDateColumn } from 'typeorm';
 
@Entity()
export class User {
  @PrimaryGeneratedColumn()
  id: number;
 
  @Column({ unique: true })
  email: string;
 
  @Column({ nullable: true })
  name: string;
 
  @OneToMany(() => Post, post => post.author)
  posts: Post[];
 
  @CreateDateColumn()
  createdAt: Date;
}
 
@Entity()
export class Post {
  @PrimaryGeneratedColumn()
  id: number;
 
  @Column()
  title: string;
 
  @Column({ nullable: true })
  content: string;
 
  @Column({ default: false })
  published: boolean;
 
  @ManyToOne(() => User, user => user.posts)
  author: User;
 
  @CreateDateColumn()
  createdAt: Date;
}

TypeORM uses decorators on TypeScript classes. It's the most verbose approach and requires experimentalDecorators in your TypeScript config. The decorator pattern is familiar if you've used Java/C# frameworks, but it feels heavier than the alternatives.

Query comparison: the same operation, three ways

Let's fetch all published posts by a specific user, including the user's name.

Prisma

const posts = await prisma.post.findMany({
  where: {
    published: true,
    author: { email: 'user@example.com' },
  },
  include: { author: { select: { name: true } } },
});

Clean, readable, fully typed. Autocomplete works perfectly — you see every available field and relation. The include and select APIs are intuitive.

Drizzle

const posts = await db
  .select({
    id: postsTable.id,
    title: postsTable.title,
    authorName: usersTable.name,
  })
  .from(postsTable)
  .innerJoin(usersTable, eq(postsTable.authorId, usersTable.id))
  .where(
    and(
      eq(postsTable.published, true),
      eq(usersTable.email, 'user@example.com')
    )
  );

If you know SQL, this reads naturally. It's explicit about the join, the selected columns, and the conditions. You know exactly what SQL will be generated because the API mirrors SQL closely. Full type safety on the result.

TypeORM

const posts = await postRepository.find({
  where: {
    published: true,
    author: { email: 'user@example.com' },
  },
  relations: ['author'],
  select: { author: { name: true } },
});

Similar to Prisma's syntax, but with some quirks — the relations array is string-based (less type-safe), and the select behavior with relations can be unintuitive. Type inference is weaker than both Prisma and Drizzle.

Migration tooling

This is where the ORMs differ significantly in day-to-day workflow.

Prisma has the best migration experience. prisma migrate dev generates SQL migration files from schema changes, applies them, and regenerates the client — all in one command. Migration files are human-readable SQL. Rolling back requires manual SQL, but the forward path is excellent.

Drizzle offers drizzle-kit for migrations. drizzle-kit generate creates SQL migration files, drizzle-kit migrate applies them. It's straightforward and reliable, though slightly less polished than Prisma's workflow. The advantage: migration files are clean SQL that any DBA can review.

TypeORM has migration support, but it's the weakest of the three. Auto-generation sometimes produces incorrect migrations, especially with complex schema changes. We've seen it drop columns unintentionally. Always review TypeORM-generated migrations manually before running them in production.

Performance: where it actually matters

For standard CRUD operations — fetching a user, creating a post, updating a record — all three ORMs perform similarly. The overhead is negligible compared to network latency and database query time.

The differences emerge in:

Complex queries

Drizzle generates the leanest SQL because its API maps directly to SQL constructs. You write a join, you get a join. No query engine interpretation layer.

Prisma's query engine adds overhead for complex queries, especially those with nested include statements. Under the hood, Prisma sometimes generates multiple queries where a single join would suffice.

TypeORM's QueryBuilder generates reasonable SQL, but the ORM layer adds more abstraction overhead than Drizzle.

Serverless and edge environments

This is Drizzle's strongest advantage. Drizzle is a thin TypeScript library — no binary engine, no additional runtime. Cold starts are fast. Bundle sizes are small.

Prisma requires a query engine binary (~15MB). In serverless environments (Vercel Serverless Functions, AWS Lambda), this increases cold start times. Prisma Accelerate and driver adapters mitigate this, but it's extra complexity.

TypeORM is the heaviest option. Cold starts in serverless are slow, and the library size impacts bundle performance. We don't recommend TypeORM for serverless projects.

Benchmarks (realistic, not synthetic)

For a typical API endpoint that fetches 50 records with one relation:

These are representative numbers from our production projects, not micro-benchmarks. The differences matter at scale — thousands of requests per second — but not for most applications.

Edge and serverless compatibility

If you're deploying to edge runtimes or prioritizing serverless performance, Drizzle is the clear winner.

Community and ecosystem

Prisma has the largest community. Extensive documentation, active GitHub, regular releases, hundreds of tutorials and guides, and strong Stack Overflow presence. When you hit an issue, someone has probably solved it.

Drizzle has a fast-growing community. Active Discord server, good documentation (though less comprehensive than Prisma's), and a responsive maintainer team. The community is enthusiastic but smaller — you'll encounter issues that aren't documented yet.

TypeORM has a large but declining community. The project's development pace has slowed. Issues and PRs sit open for months. The documentation is adequate but hasn't kept pace with TypeScript's evolution. We've noticed fewer new projects choosing TypeORM compared to two years ago.

Our recommendation

Default choice: Prisma

For most TypeScript projects we start at Hunchbite — Next.js applications with PostgreSQL — Prisma is our default. Here's why:

• Best developer experience. Autocomplete, type inference, and the Prisma Studio GUI make developers productive immediately.
• Best migration workflow. prisma migrate dev is the smoothest schema-change workflow of the three.
• Largest ecosystem. More adapters, more examples, more community answers.
• Introspection. For existing databases, prisma db pull generates the schema from your database — invaluable for brownfield projects.

When we choose Drizzle instead

• Performance-critical applications. API endpoints serving thousands of requests per second where every millisecond matters.
• Edge/serverless-first architecture. Cloudflare Workers, Vercel Edge Functions, or any environment where bundle size and cold starts matter.
• Teams who think in SQL. If your developers are experienced with SQL and find Prisma's abstraction frustrating, Drizzle lets them stay close to the metal.
• Simple data access needs. For applications that mostly run straightforward queries without complex relations, Drizzle's lightweight approach avoids unnecessary abstraction.

When TypeORM makes sense (rarely)

• Existing TypeORM codebase. If you're maintaining an application already built with TypeORM, migrating ORMs mid-project is rarely worth the cost. Improve what you have.
• NestJS projects with decorator patterns. TypeORM's decorator-based models feel natural in NestJS applications that use decorators throughout. Even here, Prisma with NestJS is increasingly the preferred approach.

We don't recommend TypeORM for new projects in 2026. Prisma and Drizzle are both better developer experiences with more active development and stronger type safety.

Common mistakes we see

1. Choosing an ORM based on benchmarks alone. The performance difference between Prisma and Drizzle is 5–10ms per query. Unless you're building a high-frequency trading platform, developer productivity matters more.
2. Using raw SQL everywhere "for performance." If you're writing raw SQL for every query, you don't need an ORM — you need a query builder like Kysely. ORMs provide value through type safety, migrations, and developer experience. Use them.
3. Ignoring migration safety. All three ORMs can generate destructive migrations (dropping columns, changing types). Always review migration SQL before running it against production. Always.
4. Not using connection pooling. Regardless of ORM choice, production applications need connection pooling (PgBouncer, Prisma Accelerate, or Supabase's built-in pooler). Without it, you'll exhaust database connections under load.
5. Over-abstracting the data layer. Wrapping your ORM in a repository pattern that adds another abstraction layer on top of an abstraction layer. Unless you genuinely plan to swap ORMs (you won't), this just adds complexity.

The bottom line

Pick Prisma if you want the best overall developer experience and don't have specific performance constraints. Pick Drizzle if you need edge/serverless compatibility, better raw performance, or prefer staying close to SQL. Avoid TypeORM for new projects.

And don't agonize over this decision for weeks. All three work. All three have production-grade type safety. The best ORM is the one your team is productive with — and you can always introduce a second one for specific use cases without replacing the first.

For more on the database layer, see our comparison of PostgreSQL vs MySQL — which pairs with this guide since your ORM choice and database choice are related decisions. To see how these tools fit into our broader stack, visit our technology page, or explore our API development services to see how we build production backends.

Starting a new TypeScript project and need help with architecture decisions? Get started — we'll review your requirements, recommend the right ORM, database, and stack, and help you build a foundation you won't regret in two years.