What is the difference between Prisma and Drizzle?

Both are TypeScript ORMs for SQL databases. Prisma uses its own schema file and a generated client with a high-level API. Drizzle defines schemas in TypeScript and offers a query builder that closely mirrors SQL.

Prisma uses a schema.prisma file with models, fields, attributes and relations. Drizzle defines tables in TypeScript with functions such as pgTable, mysqlTable or sqliteTable, plus column helpers like text and integer.

Prisma: prisma.user.findMany({ where, include }). Drizzle: db.select().from(users).where(eq(users.id, id)), or its relational API: db.query.users.findMany({ with: { posts: true } }).

When you want a readable, high-level data API, strong type safety from one schema file, mature migrations and tooling such as Prisma Studio. It suits teams that prefer not to think in SQL for everyday queries.

When you like SQL and want predictable queries. It also fits when you want a small runtime for serverless or edge, and prefer schemas and queries in plain TypeScript with no generation step.

Driver adapters let Prisma run queries through a JavaScript database driver such as pg, Neon or libSQL instead of its own Rust engine. Recent Prisma versions make this the default path. Drizzle has always worked this way: you pass an existing driver client to drizzle() and it builds SQL on top of it.

Prisma Migrate compares schema.prisma with migration history and generates SQL migration files with prisma migrate dev. Drizzle Kit compares your TypeScript schema with previous snapshots and generates SQL files with drizzle-kit generate, or pushes changes directly with drizzle-kit push.

Prisma generates types from its schema into the client, so you must regenerate after schema changes. Drizzle infers types directly from TypeScript table definitions, so types update as soon as you edit the schema. Both give typed query results.

Prisma declares relations in the schema with @relation and loads them with include or select. Drizzle uses foreign keys in table definitions, explicit joins in the query builder, or a relations definition that enables the with option in the relational query API.

Prisma offers $queryRaw and $executeRaw with tagged templates that parameterise values, plus TypedSQL for typed .sql files. In Drizzle the sql template tag is a core part of the API and can be mixed into any query builder call.