head to head · open source
orm vs postgres
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars, 2,605 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. postgres has 8,746 stars, 402 forks, 303 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. orm leads on adoption by 445% (47,661 vs 8,746 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; postgres is written in JavaScript under Unlicense. orm has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, postgres 5%. orm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (cockroachdb, database, nodejs, postgres), 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 | postgres | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Unlicense |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 402 |
| 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 postgres if
- You want the postgres feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and postgres 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 postgres
🚀 Fastest full featured node & deno client 🏷 ES6 Tagged Template Strings at the core 🏄♀️ Simple surface API 🖊️ Dynamic query support 💬 Chat and help on Gitter 🐦 Follow on Twitter Getting started Installation Usage Create your sql database instance Simply import for use elsewhere ESM dynamic imports The library can be used with ESM dynamic imports as well as shown here. Table of Contents Connection Queries Building queries Advanced query methods Transactions Data Transformation Listen & notify Realtime subscribe Numbers, bigint, numeric Result Array Connection details Custom Types Teardown / Cleanup Error…
read the full postgres overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is orm or postgres more popular?
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars and postgres has 8,746. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and postgres free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and postgres under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and postgres?
orm is written in TypeScript and postgres 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 postgres?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,661 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose postgres if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.