head to head · open source
orm vs gel
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars, 2,605 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. gel has 14,180 stars, 454 forks, 948 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. orm leads on adoption by 236% (47,661 vs 14,180 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; gel is written in Python under Apache-2.0. orm has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, gel 3%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| orm | gel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2025-12-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 454 |
| 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 gel if
- You want the gel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and gel 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 gel
Gel Learn: build an app with Gel • Website • Docs • Blog • Discord • Twitter What is Gel? Gel is a new kind of database that takes the best parts of relational databases, graph databases, and ORMs. We call it a graph relational database . 🧩 Types, not tables 🧩 Schema is the foundation of your application. It should be something you can read, write, and understand. Forget foreign keys; tabular data modeling is a relic of an older age, and it isn't compatible with modern languages. Instead, Gel thinks about schema the same way you do: as object types containing properties connected by links . This example is…
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is orm or gel more popular?
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars and gel has 14,180. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and gel free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gel under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and gel?
orm is written in TypeScript and gel in Python. 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 gel?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,661 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gel if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.