kanel VS prisma1

I'll just quickly plug Kanel (https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel) which I use to generate Typescript types from a Postgres database. I agree with the author to think migrations-first, though I prefer to write them in SQL to ensure I can utilize all the powerful features that Postgres has to offer.

With it, I only get types for the tables and views etc., so any join will be untyped if done client-side. This is still a big win in my opinion, and I much prefer it to normal ORM's.

I made a tool that generates Typescript types out of a live Postgres database. I've had a request for Kysely support (https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel/issues/273), but I more or less forgot about it. I would love to hear if that would be helpful.

There are tools that will generate typescript types from a database. I made one for Postgres. But it also works at "compile time", i.e. it doesn't look at a live database. I am not sure if that is what you are asking?

That's interesting. I use Knex a lot and I agree that it's very easy to end up just writing what is basically an ORM on the spot. I haven't quite decided if I think it's a real problem though.

I created and use Kanel (https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel) to generate Typescript types from my Postgres database which helps a lot. Knex itself has some attempt at type safety but it gets confused quite quickly, so that's where it's tempting to override things.

Interesting. Someone asked me if I supported it in Kanel. At the time it was hard to extend Kanel and then I just forgot but perhaps I should take another look at it. I am not exactly overwhelmed with the types that Knex offers even though it does make an honest attempt.

I have so far found: - kanel https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel - and pg-to-ts https://github.com/danvk/pg-to-ts

I’ve written before about the way I let the Postgres schema act as the source of truth by generating types with Kanel (assisted by Schemalint). In addition to this, I mention a homemade framework that sort of resembles a server-side Redux. This gives me typesafe database queries that are automatically reflected all the way to the frontend. I am frequently asked to make it open source and that is still the plan. I just need to untangle it from the Submotion source code which just never seems to be high enough priority. I promise I will get around to it :-)

We are using Kanel[1] for this right now — is there an advantage to using this instead?

[1]: https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel

Sure. I've been using this lib https://github.com/kristiandupont/kanel to get types from my pg database and it makes it a breeze to use raw sql + ts.

I was surprised to see Prisma (a js library) listed, digging more I found out that they indeed had an Scala project which is now archived https://github.com/prisma/prisma1

For more: https://github.com/prisma/prisma1/issues/3830

Hey there, I'm Nikolas from the Prisma team. Just came here to quickly clarify this notion:

> Prisma is an API server that puts a GraphQL API in front of a DB.

Prisma is an ORM which generates a JavaScript/TypeScript client library for your database.

Your description is very true for Prisma 1 (which has been in maintenance mode for several years and is officially deprecated by now [1]), but the latest version(s) of Prisma (v2+) don't expose a GraphQL API any more. Prisma 1 also used GraphQL SDL for data modeling, the Prisma ORM on the other hand has its own, custom modeling language for describing database schemas in a declarative way and also comes with a flexible migration system.

That being said (and as Jens also mentioned elsewhere), the Prisma ORM does use GraphQL _internally_ as a wire protocol. However, as a developer, you _never_ touch this internal GraphQL layer and are not even supposed to be aware of it (you actually have to jump through a lot of hoops to even "find" it). It's also very likely that we'll replace GraphQL as a wire protocol in the future, so "GraphQL" really isn't something you should be thinking about as a developer who is using Prisma.

Hope that clarifies the situation a bit, let me know if you have any further questions around this topic.

[1] https://github.com/prisma/prisma1/issues/5208

Could you clarify this? Are you referring to the old Prisma 1 Cloud or the new Prisma Data Platform?

First released in 2019, Prisma is the newest ORM of the four we discussed. It will need time to get to a more mature state. Recently, the release of version 3 introduced a few breaking changes. There are also some existing issues noted in GitHub, such as that it does not support some Postgres column types.

Mongoose is quite a standard also open-source, but Prisma is an emerging modern solution that seems to take the cake.

Well, here comes Blitz, the agnostic monolith. Take the database, for example - Blitz comes out-of-the-box with Prisma 2. However, you're free to switch to another one like Fauna or DynamoDB. The same goes for the configuration; deciding a folder structure, defining routing conventions, selecting a styling library, and adding authorization and authentication are all set up by default, but that doesn't mean you cannot go your own way.

There is also a RealWorld port (Rakkas implementation of the RealWorld specification), a simple but complete fullstack application demonstrating how to approach building a REST API, accessing your database (via Prisma), handling authentication, testing, and more.

If you're into Typescript and prefer a code-first approach when working with databases, you'll be happy to learn about Prisma! Prisma is a next-generation Node.js and TypeScript ORM, that allows you to define a schema using a dedicated DSL so that you can then have all the comforts of modern development environments like intellisense, static type checking, automatic scaffolding and more.

It is a frontend framework, but with API routes and ORMs like https://www.prisma.io/ , you could use it as a complete stack in traditional sense I suppose.