head to head · open source
orm vs mikro-orm
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars, 2,605 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. mikro-orm has 9,267 stars, 701 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped yesterday. orm leads on adoption by 414% (47,661 vs 9,267 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; mikro-orm is written in TypeScript under MIT. orm has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, mikro-orm 8%. mikro-orm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (database, javascript, mongodb, mysql), 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
| orm | mikro-orm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 701 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick orm if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mikro-orm if
- You want the mikro-orm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mikro-orm fits your workflow better
About orm
Docs Discord X Blog Post Architecture Using Prisma 7? It remains fully supported. Its source lives on the v7 branch of this repository and its docs at prisma.io/docs/orm/v7. Prisma 8 is a release candidate. 8.0.0 final is expected in the next four to eight weeks. Until then a release candidate may include breaking changes, and every release ships with an upgrade recipe that the prisma 8 skill applies for you. The candidate is a complete implementation we stand behind: we treat bugs in it as urgent, and the risk you take on is a feature that is not built yet rather than churn. The feature scoreboard names every…
About mikro-orm
TypeScript ORM for Node.js based on Data Mapper, Unit of Work and Identity Map patterns. Supports MongoDB, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL (including CockroachDB and PGlite), SQLite (including libSQL), MSSQL and Oracle databases. Heavily inspired by Doctrine and Hibernate. Quick Start Install a driver package for your database: If you use additional packages like @mikro orm/cli , @mikro orm/migrations , or @mikro orm/entity generator , install @mikro orm/core explicitly as well. See the quick start guide for details. Define Entities The recommended way to define entities is using defineEntity with setClass : You can…
read the full mikro-orm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is orm or mikro-orm more popular?
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars and mikro-orm has 9,267. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and mikro-orm free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and mikro-orm under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and mikro-orm?
orm is written in TypeScript and mikro-orm 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, orm or mikro-orm?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,661 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose mikro-orm if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.