head to head · open source
postgrest vs node-postgres
postgrest has 27,739 GitHub stars, 1,236 forks, 400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. node-postgres has 13,229 stars, 1,379 forks, 528 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. postgrest leads on adoption by 110% (27,739 vs 13,229 stars). postgrest is written in Haskell under MIT; node-postgres is written in JavaScript under MIT. postgrest has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, node-postgres 10%. postgrest was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (postgres, 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
| postgrest | node-postgres | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Haskell | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick postgrest if
- You weight community size — 28K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Haskell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick node-postgres if
- You want the node-postgres feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and node-postgres fits your workflow better
About postgrest
PostgREST serves a fully RESTful API from any existing PostgreSQL database. It provides a cleaner, more standards compliant, faster API than you are likely to write from scratch. Sponsors Big thanks to our sponsors! You can join them by supporting PostgREST on Patreon. Usage 1. See the docs for how to install PostgREST on your platform. You can also use Docker. 2. Invoke for help: Documentation Latest documentation is at postgrest.org. You can contribute to the docs in PostgREST/postgrest/docs. Performance TLDR; subsecond response times for up to 2000 requests/sec on Heroku free tier. If you're used to servers…
read the full postgrest overview →
About node-postgres
node postgres Non blocking PostgreSQL client for Node.js (and bun, deno, cloudflare, etc...). Pure JavaScript and optional native libpq bindings. Monorepo This repo is a monorepo which contains the core pg module as well as a handful of related modules. pg pg pool pg native pg cursor pg query stream pg connection string pg protocol Install Documentation Each package in this repo should have its own readme more focused on how to develop/contribute. For overall documentation on the project and the related modules managed by this repo please see: :star: Documentation :star: The source repo for the documentation is…
read the full node-postgres overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is postgrest or node-postgres more popular?
postgrest has 27,739 GitHub stars and node-postgres has 13,229. postgrest has the larger community by that measure.
Are postgrest and node-postgres free?
Both are open source. postgrest is licensed under MIT and node-postgres under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between postgrest and node-postgres?
postgrest is written in Haskell and node-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, postgrest or node-postgres?
Choose postgrest if you want the larger community (27,739 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose node-postgres if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.