Drizzle ORM
A SQL-shaped, zero-dependency ORM with no codegen step, and the current favorite for serverless/edge deployments where Prisma's runtime felt too heavy.
What is Drizzle ORM?
Drizzle ORM is a TypeScript ORM that mirrors SQL directly in its query builder syntax, rather than abstracting it behind an ORM-specific query language. There's no code generation step: you define your schema in TypeScript, and Drizzle infers fully typed query results straight from that schema at compile time. That makes it lightweight to add to a project and fast to start (both to run and to cold-start), which matters a lot in serverless and edge environments where every millisecond and megabyte of runtime overhead counts.
Key features
- SQL-like query builder that stays close to how you'd write the actual query, minimizing "what does this ORM method actually generate" guesswork
- Zero-dependency runtime and no build/codegen step, unlike ORMs that require generating a client before use
- Full TypeScript inference from schema to query results, with compile-time type safety
- Drizzle Kit for schema migrations, with support for introspecting an existing database
- Works with serverless drivers for Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, and edge-compatible databases like Neon, Turso, and PlanetScale
Who it's for
Teams deploying to serverless or edge runtimes (Vercel functions, Cloudflare Workers) where Prisma's generated client and runtime footprint have historically been a real pain point. If you want a more heavily abstracted, batteries-included ORM experience with a larger existing ecosystem of guides, Prisma is still the more established choice.
Pricing
Free and open-source.