Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Hasura VS Prisma GraphQL API

Compare Hasura VS Prisma GraphQL API and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Hasura logo Hasura

Hasura is an open platform to build scalable app backends, offering a built-in database, search, user-management and more.

Prisma GraphQL API logo Prisma GraphQL API

Prisma helps modern applications access and manipulate data through a unified data layer
  • Hasura Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21
  • Prisma GraphQL API Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-05

Prisma is an open-source database toolkit. It replaces traditional ORMs and makes database access easy with an auto-generated query builder for TypeScript & Node.js.

Hasura features and specs

  • Real-Time Data
    Hasura provides built-in support for GraphQL subscriptions, allowing you to easily implement real-time data updates in your applications.
  • Auto-Generated APIs
    With Hasura, you can instantly generate a fully-functional, scalable GraphQL API from your existing databases without writing any code.
  • Authorization and Authentication
    Hasura provides granular authorization controls and integrates well with various authentication services, helping to secure your data access.
  • Microservices & Event Triggers
    Hasura allows you to create event-driven architectures by allowing you to trigger webhooks based on specified database events.
  • Scalability
    Designed for performance, Hasura can handle large-scale applications by optimizing database queries and offering load-balancing capabilities.
  • Multi-Data Source Support
    Hasura can connect to multiple data sources and databases, making it a versatile choice for complex architectures.
  • Developer Productivity
    The tool significantly reduces the time required for backend development, allowing developers to focus on building frontend features and improving user experience.
  • Community and Support
    Hasura has a growing community and offers comprehensive documentation, which can be invaluable for troubleshooting and getting the most out of the platform.

Possible disadvantages of Hasura

  • Complex Initial Setup
    Although Hasura simplifies many tasks, setting it up initially can be complex and may require a good understanding of both GraphQL and your underlying database.
  • Vendor Lock-In Concerns
    Depending heavily on Hasura can create vendor lock-in situations, making it difficult to switch technologies later without significant redevelopment effort.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers unfamiliar with GraphQL, event-driven architectures, or advanced database concepts may face a steep learning curve when adopting Hasura.
  • Limited Customization
    Some advanced use cases may require lower-level customizations not easily achievable through Hasura’s auto-generated APIs.
  • Performance Overhead
    Although optimized for performance, the additional layer Hasura introduces can still introduce latency, especially in highly complex queries.
  • Debugging Complexity
    Diagnosing issues can sometimes be complicated due to the number of components involved, including the database, Hasura, and the generated APIs.
  • Cost
    While Hasura offers a free tier, advanced features and enterprise-level support come at a cost, which can add up as your project scales.

Prisma GraphQL API features and specs

  • Type-Safe API
    Prisma provides a type-safe API, reducing the likelihood of type-related errors during development and improving the developer experience.
  • Auto-Generated CRUD Operations
    Prisma automatically generates CRUD operations for your database models, which can save a significant amount of development time.
  • Flexible Data Modeling
    Prisma supports a flexible data modeling approach with its Prisma Schema Language (PSL), making it easier to design and iterate on your database schema.
  • Database Agnostic
    Prisma works with various databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB), providing a consistent API regardless of the underlying database technology.
  • Real-Time Capabilities
    Prisma supports real-time event-driven architectures, enabling features like subscriptions in GraphQL for real-time data updates.
  • Strong Community and Documentation
    Prisma has an active community and extensive documentation, which can help developers resolve issues and learn best practices.

Possible disadvantages of Prisma GraphQL API

  • Complex Migrations
    Schema migrations can become complex and require careful planning, especially for large, existing databases.
  • Learning Curve
    There can be a steep learning curve for developers who are new to the Prisma ecosystem and GraphQL in general.
  • Performance Overhead
    Using an ORM like Prisma can introduce a performance overhead compared to raw SQL queries, which might be a concern for performance-critical applications.
  • Limited Customization
    While Prisma covers most use cases, there might be scenarios where custom queries and operations are necessary, which might not be straightforward to implement.
  • Dependency on Prisma
    By adopting Prisma, you become dependent on it for your data layer. If Prisma fails to keep pace with critical updates or your needs evolve beyond its capabilities, this could be a limitation.
  • Backend-Only
    Prisma is currently backend-only and does not provide solutions for frontend integrations out-of-the-box, necessitating additional libraries or custom code for complete full-stack solutions.

Hasura videos

Scott Tries Hasura - A Realtime GraphQL API Builder

More videos:

  • Review - Evaluating Hasura
  • Review - The founder of Hasura teaching me about Hasura - FUN!

Prisma GraphQL API videos

No Prisma GraphQL API videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Hasura and Prisma GraphQL API)
GraphQL
100 100%
0% 0
Project Management
0 0%
100% 100
Realtime Backend / API
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
70 70%
30% 30

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Hasura should be more popular than Prisma GraphQL API. It has been mentiond 122 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Hasura mentions (122)

  • Supabase Alternatives 🔄 in 2025 😼
    Hasura is a neck-to-neck competitor to Supabase as a BaaS, but with a crucial difference: its GraphQL-first approach. Unlike Supabase, Hasura doesn't bundle database services, allowing it to work with virtually any database including Supabase's own Postgres, Neon, and others. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Automatically Generate REST and GraphQL APIs From Your Database
    Hasura and PostGraphile lead the PostgreSQL GraphQL landscape. Hasura provides real-time subscriptions and a powerful permissions system, while PostGraphile offers deep PostgreSQL integration and excellent performance for complex queries. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • The Myth of GraphQL
    Here is an example data schema we get for a query using Hasura and GraphQL-Codegen. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Hasura CLI on NixOS: A Working Solution
    Hasura is a great tool. I was worried about a few things such as huge RAM consumption, excessive focus on new features and functions despite many outstanding issues, long time rewrite of the server in Rust, etc... - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Haskell Certification Program
    Hasura has commercial use: https://hasura.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
View more

Prisma GraphQL API mentions (68)

  • When Embedded AuthN Meets Embedded AuthZ - Building Multi-Tenant Apps With Better-Auth and ZenStack
    While better-auth solves the problem of determining a user's identity and roles, ZenStack continues from there and uses such information to control what actions the user can perform on a piece of data. ZenStack is built above Prisma ORM and extends Prisma's power with flexible access control and automatic CRUD API. Since better-auth has built-in integration with Prisma, the two can make a perfect combination for... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Building Multi-Tenant Apps Using StackAuth's "Teams" and Next.js
    Prisma: the ORM that we use to talk to the database. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Why I love Rust for tokenising and parsing
    > If you don't mind me asking, which companies? Or how do you get into this industry within an industry? I'd really love to work on some programming language implementations professionally (although maybe that's just because I've built them non-professionally until now), You do not need to write programming languages to need parsers and lexers. My last company was Prisma (https://prisma.io) where we had our own... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Rendering Prisma Queries With React Table: The Low-Code Way
    Tables are most commonly used to render database query results — in modern times, the output of an ORM. In this post, I'll introduce a way of connecting Prisma - the most popular TypeScript ORM, to React Table, with the help of React Query and ZenStack. You'll be amazed by how little code you need to write to render a full-fledged table UI. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Why is prisma orm bad?
    If you're unfamiliar, Prisma is a well-known TypeScript ORM for PostgreSQL and MongoDB. It was the first ORM I learned to use, and this decision led to some difficulties later on. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Hasura and Prisma GraphQL API, you can also consider the following products

Supabase - An open source Firebase alternative

Nintex - Cloud-based digital workflow management automation platform

GraphQl Editor - Editor for GraphQL that lets you draw GraphQL schemas using visual nodes

dapulse - Lead by showing your team the Big Picture. Get everyone working together on what's important.

Stellate.co - Everything you need to run your GraphQL API at scale

ampEducator - ampEducator is a web-based Student Information System (SIS) specially made for public and private higher education institutions.