head to head · open source
drawDB vs rxdb
drawDB has 40,237 GitHub stars, 3,352 forks, 241 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. rxdb has 23,419 stars, 1,184 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped yesterday. drawDB leads on adoption by 72% (40,237 vs 23,419 stars). drawDB is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; rxdb is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. drawDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, rxdb 5%. rxdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (database, indexeddb), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| drawDB | rxdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 23K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick drawDB if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rxdb if
- You want the rxdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and rxdb fits your workflow better
About drawDB
drawDB Free, simple, and intuitive database schema editor and SQL generator. DrawDB is a robust and user friendly database entity relationship diagram (ERD) editor right in your browser. Build diagrams with a few clicks, export and import SQL scripts, generate migrations, customize your editor, and more without creating an account. See the full set of features on here. Getting Started Local Development Build Docker Build If you want to enable sharing, set up the server and environment variables according to .env.sample . This is optional unless you need to share files. Contributing Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for…
read the full drawDB overview →
About rxdb
A fast, local first , reactive Database for JavaScript Applications What is RxDB? RxDB (short for R eactive D ata b ase) is a local first , NoSQL database for JavaScript Applications. Reactive means that you can not only query the current state, but subscribe to all state changes like the result of a query or even a single field of a document. This is great for UI based realtime applications in a way that makes it easy to develop and also has great performance benefits. Use the quickstart, read the documentation or explore the example projects. Used by many RxDB is a proven technology used by thousands of…
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Frequently asked questions
Is drawDB or rxdb more popular?
drawDB has 40,237 GitHub stars and rxdb has 23,419. drawDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are drawDB and rxdb free?
Both are open source. drawDB is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and rxdb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between drawDB and rxdb?
drawDB is written in JavaScript and rxdb in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, drawDB or rxdb?
Choose drawDB if you want the larger community (40,237 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose rxdb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.