Prisma vs Turso

At a Glance

Prisma

Turso

Prisma

Pros

The schema definition language generates migrations, types, and a query client — it's the closest thing to a full ORM DX that TypeScript has+191
Auto-completion in VS Code for Prisma queries is genuinely the best ORM IDE experience I've used in any language+167
Type-safe queries eliminate an entire category of runtime errors that would otherwise only surface in production+154
The Prisma Studio GUI lets non-technical teammates browse and edit data without learning SQL or touching the database directly+138
Migration history tracked as SQL files in version control means your database evolution is always reviewable and auditable+119

Database

Prisma vs Drizzle

Database

Neon vs PlanetScale vs Turso

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Cons

Prisma Client performance under heavy load is noticeably slower than raw SQL or lighter ORMs like Drizzle due to the query engine overhead+162
The query engine is a binary that has to be downloaded per platform — this causes deployment issues with exotic architectures and Lambda layers+141
Complex queries that Prisma can't express force you to drop into raw SQL, which breaks the type-safety you were relying on+127
Migration conflicts in teams with multiple developers working on the schema simultaneously are painful to resolve manually+89

Turso

Pros

Pricing is genuinely cheap — the free tier includes 9GB storage and 500 databases which covers most indie projects indefinitely+141
Edge replication puts a read replica close to every user without any configuration, which makes global apps feel instant+128
SQLite is so simple that onboarding a new developer takes minutes — there's no server to configure or connection string to debug+103
The embedded replica feature lets you run the database in-process for zero-latency reads in serverless environments+87
Drizzle ORM integration is first-class and the setup docs are the best in the SQLite ecosystem right now+76

Cons

SQLite's limited ALTER TABLE support means schema migrations are more awkward than with Postgres — you often have to recreate tables+118
Write latency goes to the primary region, so users far from your primary location will see slower write performance than reads+94
Multi-tenant setups with hundreds of databases sound great in theory but managing that many separate databases adds operational complexity+83
The ecosystem is still young and you'll hit undocumented edge cases that require digging through GitHub issues to resolve+71