Drizzle vs TypeORM vs Prisma for NestJS

Drizzle vs TypeORM vs Prisma for NestJS CRUD is a choice between three ways of describing your data. Drizzle declares tables as TypeScript functions and queries with a SQL-like builder. TypeORM maps decorated entity classes and supports both Data Mapper and Active Record. Prisma generates a typed client from its own schema file. All three work with NestJS; they differ in schema style, Nest integration and the CRUD libraries built on top.

How do the three ORMs compare?Copy Anchor Link

The Nest package row comes from the NestJS database chapter: "The Nest team maintains the @nestjs/typeorm, @nestjs/drizzle, @nestjs/mongoose, and @nestjs/sequelize packages", and Prisma "has no Nest-specific package". npm versions and dates are from the npm registry for drizzle-orm, typeorm and @prisma/client.

"Not covered here" means this page did not check that feature, not that the ORM lacks it.

What does the same table look like in each?Copy Anchor Link

One users table with an id, a name and an email.

import { pgTable, serial, varchar } from "drizzle-orm/pg-core";

export const users = pgTable("users", {
  id: serial("id").primaryKey(),
  name: varchar("name").notNull(),
  email: varchar("email").notNull(),
});

export type User = typeof users.$inferSelect;

Which CRUD libraries exist for each?Copy Anchor Link

A CRUD layer is tied to one ORM, so this choice often decides the ORM, or the other way round.

This page does not list CRUD libraries for Prisma, because none were checked. The detailed comparisons are on nestjs-drizzle-crud vs @nestjsx/crud and nestjs-drizzle-crud vs nestjs-paginate.

Can I use nestjs-drizzle-crud with @nestjs/drizzle?Copy Anchor Link

Check the Drizzle version first. nestjs-drizzle-crud declares drizzle-orm from 0.28.0 up to, not including, 1.0.0 as its peer range. The NestJS Drizzle chapter installs drizzle-orm@rc, which on 2 November 2026 resolves to 1.0.0-rc.5, outside that range. On drizzle-orm 0.45.x you can open the connection yourself and pass it to DrizzleCrudModule.forRoot as db; the module then uses it as is and never closes it. See forRoot.

When should I choose Drizzle?Copy Anchor Link

Choose Drizzle when:

• you want the schema and its types in plain TypeScript, with no decorators and no generate step,
• you think in SQL and want a query builder that reads like it, or
• you want a CRUD layer such as nestjs-drizzle-crud on top.

When should I choose TypeORM?Copy Anchor Link

Choose TypeORM when:

• your team already models data as decorated classes, or uses Active Record,
• you need a database Drizzle does not list, such as Oracle, SAP HANA or Google Spanner, or
• you want @nestjsx/crud or nestjs-paginate, which are built on it.

When should I choose Prisma?Copy Anchor Link

Choose Prisma when:

• you prefer one schema file that drives both the client and migrations,
• you are fine wiring the generated client into Nest with a provider of your own.

Check the version you install: on 2 November 2026 the latest tag of the prisma CLI on npm is 8.0.0-rc.29, a release candidate, and the NestJS Prisma chapter tells you to install prisma@7 and @prisma/client@7 explicitly.

Common questionsCopy Anchor Link

Next stepsCopy Anchor Link