head to head · open source
typeorm vs rocksdb
typeorm has 36,665 GitHub stars, 6,694 forks, 646 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. rocksdb has 32,241 stars, 7,006 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. typeorm leads on adoption by 14% (36,665 vs 32,241 stars). typeorm is written in TypeScript under MIT; rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. typeorm has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, rocksdb 22%. rocksdb 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
| typeorm | rocksdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 32K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 7.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick typeorm if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rocksdb if
- You want the rocksdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and rocksdb fits your workflow better
About typeorm
TypeORM is an ORM that can run in Node.js, Browser, Cordova, Ionic, React Native, NativeScript, Expo, and Electron platforms and can be used with TypeScript and JavaScript (ES2023). Its goal is to always support the latest JavaScript features and provide additional features that help you to develop any kind of application that uses databases from small applications with a few tables to large scale enterprise applications with multiple databases. TypeORM supports more databases than any other JS/TS ORM: Google Spanner, Microsoft SqlServer, MySQL/MariaDB, MongoDB, Oracle, Postgres, SAP HANA and SQLite, as well as…
read the full typeorm overview →
About rocksdb
RocksDB: A Persistent Key Value Store for Flash and RAM Storage RocksDB is developed and maintained by Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is built on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat (sanjay@google.com) and Jeff Dean (jeff@google.com) This code is a library that forms the core building block for a fast key value server, especially suited for storing data on flash drives. It has a Log Structured Merge Database (LSM) design with flexible tradeoffs between Write Amplification Factor (WAF), Read Amplification Factor (RAF) and Space Amplification Factor (SAF). It has multi threaded compactions, making…
read the full rocksdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is typeorm or rocksdb more popular?
typeorm has 36,665 GitHub stars and rocksdb has 32,241. typeorm has the larger community by that measure.
Are typeorm and rocksdb free?
Both are open source. typeorm is licensed under MIT and rocksdb under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between typeorm and rocksdb?
typeorm is written in TypeScript and rocksdb in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, typeorm or rocksdb?
Choose typeorm if you want the larger community (36,665 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rocksdb if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.