head to head · open source
drawDB vs sequelize
drawDB has 39,575 GitHub stars, 3,249 forks, 241 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sequelize has 30,362 stars, 4,341 forks, 1,080 open issues and last shipped yesterday. drawDB leads on adoption by 30% (39,575 vs 30,362 stars). drawDB is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; sequelize is written in TypeScript under MIT. drawDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, sequelize 14%. sequelize was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (mariadb), 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
| drawDB | sequelize | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 30K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 4.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick drawDB if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sequelize if
- You want the sequelize feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sequelize fits your workflow better
About drawDB
drawDB is a free, open source, browser based database entity relationship diagram (ERD) editor and SQL generator for developers, data modellers, and teams who need to design database schemas and turn them into SQL scripts without creating an account.
read the full drawDB overview →
About sequelize
Sequelize is a promise based object relational mapping tool for Node.js, written in TypeScript and distributed under the MIT license. It maps JavaScript and TypeScript objects onto relational tables, so application code works with models and relations instead of hand written SQL strings. The package is published on npm as @sequelize/core , documentation lives at sequelize.org, and the project has existed for roughly sixteen years with about 30,000 stars and 4,300 forks on GitHub. It belongs to the Node.js ecosystem, where it occupies the ORM layer between an application and its database driver.…
read the full sequelize overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is drawDB or sequelize more popular?
drawDB has 39,575 GitHub stars and sequelize has 30,362. drawDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are drawDB and sequelize free?
Both are open source. drawDB is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and sequelize under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between drawDB and sequelize?
drawDB is written in JavaScript and sequelize in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, drawDB or sequelize?
Choose drawDB if you want the larger community (39,575 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sequelize if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.