whichdevtool?
Menu
StacksDirectory Pricing changes Glossary
VPS and cloud servers App hosting and PaaS Managed databases Transactional email APIs Email marketing and newsletters Domain registrars CDN, DNS and edge security Monitoring, uptime and error tracking Auth and identity Frontend and full-stack frameworks Backend frameworks UI component libraries AI model APIs File and object storage Payments and billing Background jobs, queues and workflows ORMs and database toolkits

SQL-like TypeScript ORM · by Drizzle Team

Drizzle ORM

Lightweight TypeScript ORM with SQL-shaped query builders, schemas declared in TypeScript, zero dependencies and a CLI (Drizzle Kit) for migrations and a free data browser.

Visit orm.drizzle.team ↗ Alternatives Open source Open source Self-hostable
Drizzle ORM homepage
§1

Overview

Drizzle ORM is a TypeScript ORM from the Drizzle Team, a group of about ten developers, that describes itself as a thin typed layer over SQL. You declare tables with functions such as pgTable, then write queries with select().from().where() builders that map closely to SQL, or use the relational query API (db.query) to fetch nested relations. It is about 7.4 KB minified and gzipped, has no dependencies and ships no native binary, which makes it a common choice for serverless and edge runtimes.

Drizzle Kit, the companion CLI, generates SQL migration files from schema changes, applies them, or pushes schema directly in development, and can introspect an existing database. drizzle-kit studio opens a local data browser; the self-hosted Drizzle Gateway and a Chrome extension are also free.

Version 1.0 has been in beta and release candidates through 2026 (v1.0.0-rc.1 on 30 April 2026), adding a new migration folder layout, MSSQL and CockroachDB support, a second-generation relational query API and opt-in JIT row mappers. The release candidates contain breaking changes, so read each release's notes before upgrading.

§2

Pricing and plans

Plan Price What you get
Drizzle ORM and Kit $0 Open source
Drizzle Studio (local) $0 drizzle-kit studio, free forever
Drizzle Gateway $0 Self-hosted Studio as a Docker image or binary; was paid, now free
Studio Component Custom Embeddable Studio web component for B2B products; price not published

Everything a developer uses is free, including Drizzle Studio and the self-hosted Drizzle Gateway (formerly paid). The only paid product is the embeddable Drizzle Studio Component for companies, priced by contact.

Source: orm.drizzle.team/drizzle-studio/overview · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

SQL-shaped query builder
select, insert, update, delete, joins, CTEs and set operators with types inferred from the schema.
Relational queries
db.query API loads nested relations in one SQL statement; version 1 reworks it as RQB v2.
Drizzle Kit
CLI to generate, apply and push migrations, introspect databases and check migration conflicts across branches.
Runs anywhere
Node, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, Supabase functions, edge runtimes and browsers, with drivers for Neon, Turso, D1, PlanetScale and more.
Drizzle Studio
Free local database browser, self-hosted Gateway and Chrome extension for PlanetScale, D1 and Vercel Postgres.
Validation plugins
drizzle-zod, drizzle-valibot, drizzle-typebox and drizzle-arktype derive validators from tables.
§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Queries map closely to SQL, so there is little ORM magic to learn
  • No dependencies or binaries; small bundle for serverless and edge
  • Broad driver support for serverless databases
  • Free data browser, including a self-hosted team version

Limitations

  • Version 1.0 is still a release candidate after a long beta; RCs include breaking changes such as the reworked casing API
  • No down (rollback) migrations; users in the v1 tracking issue list it as the main missing feature
  • Run by a small team, so issue backlogs can be long
  • No MongoDB or other non-SQL support
§5

Who it suits

Good for

  • TypeScript developers who are comfortable with SQL
  • Serverless and edge apps on Cloudflare Workers, Vercel or Bun
  • Projects on Neon, Turso, D1 or PlanetScale

Look elsewhere if

  • Teams that want automatic rollback migrations
  • Developers who want to avoid pre-1.0 churn
§6

Pricing history

  • Drizzle ORM 1.0 reaches release candidate

    drizzle-orm v1.0.0-rc.1 added opt-in JIT row mappers and Effect v4 support, and brought breaking changes to the casing API and removed RQB v1 for Postgres. 1.0 final had not shipped by 29 September 2026. Source ↗

§7

Alternatives to Drizzle ORM

Tool From Free option Stages
Ecto Elixir data mapping and query toolkit
— Open source
Eloquent ORM Active Record ORM for Laravel
— Open source
SQLAlchemy Python SQL toolkit and ORM
— Open source
Diesel Compile-time checked Rust ORM and query builder
— Open source
Knex.js JavaScript SQL query builder
— Open source
Kysely Type-safe TypeScript SQL query builder
— Open source

All ORMs and database toolkits →

§8

Questions

Is Drizzle ORM free?

Yes. Drizzle ORM, Drizzle Kit, Drizzle Studio and the self-hosted Drizzle Gateway are free; only the embeddable Studio Component for businesses is paid.

Is Drizzle 1.0 released?

Not as a final release on 2026-09-29; 1.0 has shipped as betas and release candidates through 2026.

Does Drizzle support down migrations?

No. Drizzle Kit generates and applies forward migrations; rollbacks are written by hand.

Does Drizzle work on Cloudflare Workers?

Yes. It has no native binary and ships drivers for D1, Neon HTTP, Turso and other serverless databases.

Sources read for this page