head to head · open source
orm vs neo4j
orm has 47,664 GitHub stars, 2,634 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped yesterday. neo4j has 17,386 stars, 2,835 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. orm leads on adoption by 174% (47,664 vs 17,386 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; neo4j is written in Java under GPL-3.0. orm has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, neo4j 16%. orm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), 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 | neo4j | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 2.8K |
| 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 neo4j if
- You want the neo4j feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and neo4j 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 neo4j
= Neo4j: Graphs for Everyone = is the world's leading Graph Database. It is a high performance graph store with all the features expected of a mature and robust database, like a friendly query language and ACID transactions. The programmer works with a flexible network structure of nodes and relationships rather than static tables yet enjoys all the benefits of enterprise quality database. For many applications, Neo4j offers orders of magnitude performance benefits compared to relational DBs. Learn more on the website]. users]] == Using Neo4j == Neo4j is available as a fully managed solution where you can get…
read the full neo4j overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is orm or neo4j more popular?
orm has 47,664 GitHub stars and neo4j has 17,386. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and neo4j free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and neo4j under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and neo4j?
orm is written in TypeScript and neo4j in Java. 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 neo4j?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,664 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose neo4j if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.