Prisma & TypeORM

Overview

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

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

Fetching single objects

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
const user = await userRepository.findOne(id)

Fetching selected scalars of single objects

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
const user = await userRepository.findOne(id, {
  select: ['id', '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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
const user = await userRepository.findOne(id, {
  relations: ['posts'],
})

Filtering for concrete values

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
const users = await userRepository.find({
  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

TypeORM

TypeORM doesn't expose other filter critera. But you can use the QueryBuilder API to send queries using LIKE and other SQL operators.

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
  }
}

TypeORM

TypeORM doesn't offer a dedicated API for relation filters. You can get similar functionality by using the QueryBuilder or writing the queries by hand.

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

TypeORM

const postRepository = getRepository(Post)
const posts = await postRepository.find({
  skip: 5,
  take: 10,
})

Creating objects

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const user = new User()
user.name = 'Alice'
user.email = 'alice@prisma.io'
await user.save()

Updating objects

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
const updatedUser = await userRepository.update(id, {
  name: 'James',
  email: 'james@prisma.io',
})

Deleting objects

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
await userRepository.delete(id)

Batch updates

Prisma

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

TypeORM

TypeORM doesn't offer a dedicated API for batch updates, but you can use save on an array of entities which leads to similar functionality.

Batch deletes

Prisma

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

TypeORM

const userRepository = getRepository(User)
await userRepository.delete([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' },
    ],
  },
})

TypeORM

await getConnection().transaction(async transactionalEntityManager => {
  const user = getRepository(User).create({
    name: 'Bob',
    email: 'bob@prisma.io',
  })
  const post1 = getRepository(Post).create({
    title: 'Join us for GraphQL Conf in 2019',
  })
  const post2 = getRepository(Post).create({
    title: 'Subscribe to GraphQL Weekly for GraphQL news',
  })
  user.posts = [post1, post2]
  await transactionalEntityManager.save(post1)
  await transactionalEntityManager.save(post2)
  await transactionalEntityManager.save(user)
})