Getting Started with Prisma: Installation & Usage | Notion

1. What is Prisma?

Prisma is an open-source ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) tool for Node.js and TypeScript that simplifies database access. It provides:

Type-safe database queries: Autocompletion and compile-time error checking.
Database schema management: Define models in schema.prisma and automatically generate migrations.
Multi-database support: Works with PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, SQL Server, MongoDB, and more.
Prisma Client: A generated query builder to interact with your database using JavaScript/TypeScript.

Key Components of Prisma:

Prisma Client – type-safe query builder.
Prisma Migrate – database migrations.
Prisma Studio – GUI to explore your database.

2. Why Use Prisma?

Prisma is useful because it:

Feature	Benefit
Type safety	Errors are caught at compile-time instead of runtime.
Auto-generated queries	Write database queries faster without raw SQL.
Migrations	Keep database schema in sync across development, staging, and production.
Easy relations	Manage one-to-many and many-to-many relationships cleanly.
Multi-database support	Switch between different databases with minimal effort.
Developer productivity	Less boilerplate code; clean, readable codebase.

3. When to Use Prisma

Use Prisma when you:

Want a type-safe ORM for Node.js/TypeScript.
Need easy database schema management and migrations.