Prisma & Sequelize

Overview

This page compares Prisma with Sequelize. Here is a high-level overview:

In the following, you find a detailled comparison of the Sequelize and Prisma APIs.

Fetching single objects

Prisma

const user = await prisma.user({ id })

Sequelize

const user = await User.findByPk(id)

Fetching selected scalars of single objects

Prisma

const userFragment = await prisma.user({ id }).$fragment(`
  fragment NameAndEmail on User { id email }`
`)

Sequelize

const user = await User.findByPk(id, attributes: {
  ["name", "email"]
})

Fetching relations

Prisma

const postsByUser = await prisma.user({ id }).posts()

While the $fragment and the $graphql APIs each return a user object that includes a posts array, the fluent API returns just the posts array and no data about the user.

See the following GitHub issues to learn more about planned iterations of the Prisma client relations API:

• Improved relational client API: $nested queries
• Extend fluent API for relations

Sequelize

const user = await User.findByPk(id, {
  include: [
    {
      model: Post,
    },
  ],
})

Filtering for concrete values

Prisma

const users = await prisma.users({
  where: {
    name: 'Alice',
  },
})

Sequelize

const user = User.findAll({
  where: {
    name: 'Alice',
  },
})

Other filter criteria

Prisma

Prisma generates many additional filters that are commonly used in modern application development:

• <field>_ends_with & <field>_starts_with
• <field>_not_ends_with & <field>_not_starts_with
• <field>_gt & <field>_gte
• <field>_lt & <field>_lte
• <field>_contains & <field>_not_contains
• <field>_in & <field>_not_in

Sequelize

Sequelize has an extensive set of operators to be found here.

Relation filters

Prisma

Prisma lets you filter a list based on a criteria that applies not only to the models of the list being retrieved, but to a relation of that model.

For example, you want to fetch only those users that wrote a post with the title "Hello World":

query {
  user(where: {
    posts_some: {
      title: "Hello World"
    }
  }) {
    id
  }
}

Sequelize

Sequelize doesn't offer a dedicated API for relation filters. You can get similar functionality by sending a raw SQL query to the database.

Pagination

Prisma

const posts = await prisma.posts({
  skip: 5,
  first: 10,
})

In addition to skip and first, the Prisma API also offers:

• last
• before & after for cursor based pagination
• Relay-style pagination

Sequelize

const posts = await Post.findAll({
  offset: 5,
  limit: 10,
})

Creating objects

Prisma

const user = await prisma.createUser({
  name: 'Alice',
  email: 'alice@prisma.io',
})

Sequelize

const user = User.build({
  name: 'Alice',
  email: 'alice@prisma,io',
})
await user.save()

Updating objects

Prisma

const updatedUser = await prisma.updateUser({
  where: { id },
  data: {
    name: 'James',
    email: 'james@prisma.io',
  },
})

Sequelize

user.name = 'James'
user.email = ' alice@prisma.com'
await user.save()

Deleting objects

Prisma

const deletedUser = await prisma.deleteUser({ id })

Sequelize

await user.destroy()

Batch updates

Prisma

const updatedUsers = await prisma.updateManyUsers({
  data: { role: 'ADMIN' },
  where: {
    email_ends_with: '@prisma.io',
  },
})

Sequelize

const updatedUsers = await User.update({
  { role: "Admin" },
  where: {
    email: {
      [Op.like]: "%@prisma.io"
    }
  },
})

Batch deletes

Prisma

await prisma.deleteManyUsers({
  id_in: [id1, id2, id3],
})

Sequelize

await User.destroy({
  where: {
    id: {
      [Op.in]: [id1, id2, id3],
    },
  },
})

Transactions

Prisma

const newUser = await prisma.createUser({
  name: 'Bob',
  email: 'bob@prisma.io',
  posts: {
    create: [
      { title: 'Join us for GraphQL Conf in 2019' },
      { title: 'Subscribe to GraphQL Weekly for GraphQL news' },
    ],
  },
})

Sequelize

return sequelize.transaction(async t => {
  const user = await User.create(
    {
      name: 'Alice',
      email: 'alice@prisma,io',
    },
    {
      transaction: t,
    },
  )
  const post1 = await Post.create(
    {
      title: 'Join us for GraphQL Conf in 2019',
    },
    {
      transaction: t,
    },
  )
  const post2 = await Post.create(
    {
      title: 'Subscribe to GraphQL Weekly for GraphQL news',
    },
    {
      transaction: t,
    },
  )
  await user.setPosts([post1, post2])
})