head to head · open source
orm vs spicedb
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars, 2,605 forks, 2,627 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. spicedb has 7,192 stars, 439 forks, 157 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. orm leads on adoption by 563% (47,661 vs 7,192 stars). orm is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; spicedb is written in Go under Apache-2.0. orm has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, spicedb 6%. 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 | spicedb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 7.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 439 |
| 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 spicedb if
- You want the spicedb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and spicedb 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 spicedb
SpiceDB sets the standard for authorization that scales . Scale with Traffic • Dev Velocity • Functionality • Geography What is SpiceDB? SpiceDB is the most mature open source project inspired by Google's internal authorization system: [Zanzibar]. As of 2021, [broken access control became the 1 threat to web security according to OWASP][owasp]. With SpiceDB, platform and product teams can be be protected by answering this question easily: "can subject X perform action Y on resource Z?" Similar to a relational database, developers define a schema , write data in the form of relationships , and then use SpiceDB's…
read the full spicedb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is orm or spicedb more popular?
orm has 47,661 GitHub stars and spicedb has 7,192. orm has the larger community by that measure.
Are orm and spicedb free?
Both are open source. orm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and spicedb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between orm and spicedb?
orm is written in TypeScript and spicedb in Go. 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 spicedb?
Choose orm if you want the larger community (47,661 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose spicedb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.