head to head · open source
orm vs orbitdb
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars, 2,605 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. orbitdb has 8,823 stars, 594 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. orm leads on adoption by 440% (47,661 vs 8,823 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; orbitdb is written in JavaScript under MIT. orm has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, orbitdb 7%. 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 | orbitdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-05-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 594 |
| 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 orbitdb if
- You want the orbitdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and orbitdb 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 orbitdb
OrbitDB OrbitDB is a serverless, distributed, peer to peer database . OrbitDB uses IPFS as its data storage and Libp2p Pubsub to automatically sync databases with peers. It's an eventually consistent database that uses Merkle CRDTs for conflict free database writes and merges making OrbitDB an excellent choice for p2p and decentralized apps, blockchain applications and local first web applications. OrbitDB provides various types of databases for different data models and use cases: events : an immutable (append only) log with traversable history. Useful for "latest N" use cases or as a message queue. documents…
read the full orbitdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is orm or orbitdb more popular?
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars and orbitdb has 8,823. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and orbitdb free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and orbitdb under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and orbitdb?
orm is written in TypeScript and orbitdb in JavaScript. 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 orbitdb?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,661 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose orbitdb if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.