🚀 Prisma ORM is Moving from Rust to TypeScript – Here's What It Means for Developers

Prisma recently announced a major change: they are rewriting the core of their ORM — the query engine — from Rust to TypeScript. This isn’t just a refactor. It’s a full-blown architecture shift that changes how Prisma executes queries and integrates into modern JS runtimes like serverless and edge.

In this post, we’ll explore:

Why Prisma used Rust originally
Why they’re moving to TypeScript
What changes in query execution
How this impacts you as a developer

🧠 Why Prisma Used Rust in the First Place

When Prisma 2 was being developed, their vision was to support multiple programming languages (TypeScript, Go, Python, etc.). They needed a powerful, portable engine that could generate SQL and handle connection pooling efficiently.

✅ Rust was chosen for:

High performance
Cross-platform compilation
Strong safety and concurrency
Easy to compile into binaries

This Rust-powered engine sat between your Prisma Client and your database, translating Prisma queries into SQL and executing them efficiently.

🤔 Why Prisma is Moving Away from Rust

Despite Rust’s benefits, Prisma’s goals have changed. It’s now a TypeScript-first ORM. Supporting Rust long-term introduced several challenges:

🔧 Deployment issues: Different OS and OpenSSL versions need separate binaries.
💡 Contribution barrier: Most of the community works in TypeScript, not Rust.
🌍 Incompatibility: Large Rust binaries don’t work well in serverless or edge environments.
📦 DevX friction: Debugging across language boundaries (Rust ↔ TS) is tough.

So Prisma is now going all-in on TypeScript for execution, and keeping just a small WASM-based query planner from the Rust engine.

🔄 What’s Changing in Prisma’s Architecture?

🔸 Before: Rust Query Engine

In the current architecture:

Prisma Client passes query → Rust query engine compiles SQL → Executes query → Returns result

Problem? Rust adds binary size, deployment complexity, and limited extensibility.

🔹 Now: TypeScript + WASM Query Compiler

The new approach looks like this:

Prisma Client → WASM (query planner) → TypeScript execution layer → DB → Result

✨ No external binaries. ✨ Native JavaScript execution. ✨ Works with edge runtimes like Cloudflare Workers.

📦 What About Database Drivers?

Prisma introduced driver adapters — they allow Prisma to use JavaScript-only DB drivers (e.g. SQLite, D1, Turso).

So now:

Query plan is built in WASM.
Query is executed in TS using native JS drivers.
No need to serialize data back and forth between Rust and JS.

This simplifies everything.

🛠 Benefits of the New Architecture

Here's what this move unlocks for developers:

✅ Easier deployments (no binaryTargets needed)
✅ Full compatibility with edge/serverless runtimes
✅ Contributions in TypeScript (not Rust!)
✅ Reduced cold starts & faster builds
✅ Better support for JS-only DBs like Turso and D1

🧪 Developer Example: Fewer Binary Hassles

Before:


# Needed to define binaryTargets in schema.prisma
binaryTargets = ["native", "debian-openssl-1.1.x", "linux-musl"]
Click to Copy

Now:

🚫 No more binaryTargets needed. ✅ Prisma CLI fetches WASM package via npm. ✅ Your Prisma project is 100% JavaScript runtime ready.

💡 What Does This Mean for You?

You can still use Prisma Client as usual.
Expect smaller package sizes, fewer build errors.
Soon, even the Prisma CLI may not need binaries!
You’ll get edge compatibility out of the box.

And the best part? No breaking changes (yet).

🧭 Final Thoughts

Prisma’s rewrite from Rust to TypeScript isn’t just a tech decision — it’s a developer experience win.

✅ Easier contribution
✅ Faster iteration
✅ Edge & serverless compatibility
✅ Simpler install + deploy experience

If you’re building with TypeScript, this change brings Prisma closer to your stack — and future-proofs your projects.

Want to test the new version? Watch Prisma’s GitHub or join the Discord to try the Early Access Client. If want to read blog by Prisma click here

Prisma ORM is Moving from Rust to TypeScript – What You Need to Know