head to head · open source
sequelize vs mikro-orm
sequelize has 30,343 GitHub stars, 4,486 forks, 1,080 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. mikro-orm has 9,264 stars, 699 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sequelize leads on adoption by 228% (30,343 vs 9,264 stars). sequelize is written in TypeScript under MIT; mikro-orm is written in TypeScript under MIT. sequelize has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, mikro-orm 8%. mikro-orm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (javascript, mysql, nodejs, orm), 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
| sequelize | mikro-orm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 699 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick sequelize if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mikro-orm if
- You want the mikro-orm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mikro-orm fits your workflow better
About sequelize
Sequelize Sequelize is an easy to use and promise based Node.js ORM tool for Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Snowflake, Oracle DB and Db2 for IBM i. It features solid transaction support, relations, eager and lazy loading, read replication and more. Would you like to contribute? Read our contribution guidelines to know more. There are many ways to help! 😃 🚀 Seeking New Maintainers for Sequelize! 🚀 We're looking for new maintainers to help finalize and release the next major version of Sequelize! If you're passionate about open source and database ORMs, we'd love to have you…
read the full sequelize overview →
About mikro-orm
TypeScript ORM for Node.js based on Data Mapper, Unit of Work and Identity Map patterns. Supports MongoDB, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL (including CockroachDB and PGlite), SQLite (including libSQL), MSSQL and Oracle databases. Heavily inspired by Doctrine and Hibernate. Quick Start Install a driver package for your database: If you use additional packages like @mikro orm/cli , @mikro orm/migrations , or @mikro orm/entity generator , install @mikro orm/core explicitly as well. See the quick start guide for details. Define Entities The recommended way to define entities is using defineEntity with setClass : You can…
read the full mikro-orm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sequelize or mikro-orm more popular?
sequelize has 30,343 GitHub stars and mikro-orm has 9,264. sequelize has the larger community by that measure.
Are sequelize and mikro-orm free?
Both are open source. sequelize is licensed under MIT and mikro-orm under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sequelize and mikro-orm?
sequelize is written in TypeScript and mikro-orm 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, sequelize or mikro-orm?
Choose sequelize if you want the larger community (30,343 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mikro-orm if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.