head to head · open source
NocoDB vs dbal
NocoDB has 65,400 GitHub stars, 5,127 forks, 710 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbal has 9,701 stars, 1,376 forks, 304 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. NocoDB leads on adoption by 574% (65,400 vs 9,701 stars). NocoDB is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; dbal is written in PHP under MIT. NocoDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, dbal 14%. NocoDB was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (postgresql), 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
| NocoDB | dbal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick NocoDB if
- You weight community size — 65K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dbal if
- You want the dbal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and dbal fits your workflow better
About NocoDB
NocoDB is the fastest and easiest way to build databases online. Website • Discord • Community • Twitter • Reddit • Documentation See other languages » Join Our Community Installation Docker with SQLite Docker with PG Auto upstall Auto upstall is a single command that sets up NocoDB on a server for production usage. Behind the scenes it auto generates docker compose for you. bash bash install.nocodb.com/noco.sh script can be found here in our github Other Methods Binaries are only for quick testing locally. When running locally access nocodb by visiting: For more installation methods, please refer to our docs…
read the full NocoDB overview →
About dbal
Doctrine DBAL Powerful D ata B ase A bstraction L ayer with many features for database schema introspection and schema management. More resources: Website Documentation Issue Tracker [Coverage 5.0 image]: [5.0]: [CodeCov 5.0]: [GA 5.0]: [GA 5.0 image]: [Coverage 4.5 image]: [4.5]: [CodeCov 4.5]: [GA 4.5]: [GA 4.5 image]: [Coverage 4.4 image]: [4.4]: [CodeCov 4.4]: [GA 4.4]: [GA 4.4 image]: [Coverage 3.10 image]: [3.10]: [CodeCov 3.10]: [GA 3.10]: [GA 3.10 image]:
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Frequently asked questions
Is NocoDB or dbal more popular?
NocoDB has 65,400 GitHub stars and dbal has 9,701. NocoDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are NocoDB and dbal free?
Both are open source. NocoDB has no licence declared in this registry, and dbal is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between NocoDB and dbal?
NocoDB is written in TypeScript and dbal in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, NocoDB or dbal?
Choose NocoDB if you want the larger community (65,400 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose dbal if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.