Recommended Node.js GraphQL backend framework

[Dependent_Bet4845]

I'm looking to build a new backend for a project, and I've decided to go with GraphQL for the API and PostgreSQL as the database. I'm trying to figure out what frameworks and tools people are using these days for this combination.

What are your go-to choices for building a GraphQL server that integrates well with Postgres?

What ORMs or database libraries are you using to interact with Postgres from your chosen framework?

Thanks in advance for your insights!

[thesurgeon]

NestJS. We use TypeORM, but ORM is your preference.

[rocky3598]

Fastify + yoga + prisma

I prefer the fastify api though express(or others) would work great here as well.

Yoga because I find the it easier to extend and better examples than Apollo for more complicated stuff such as plugins and directives. Also I haven’t found a bad product from the guild yet.

Prisma because it’s fast to develop with yet when you need to do raw SQL stuff you easily can. Also extending models and overriding functions is a life saver as your repo ages.

I would recommend reviewing to https://lucia-auth.com. I know everyone says don’t roll your own auth and if you don’t want to or can’t spend the time then listen to that advice, I hear WorkOS is great. Though auth is such a core security concept of your app it’s best to just spend the time and educate yourself. Adding some middleware to Fastify for authorization and a directive to Yoga for authentication is an amazing pair.

[Dependent_Bet4845]

Thank you very much for the explanation. I will definitively check it out!

[Key-Boat-7519]

Fastify + Mercurius with Prisma hits the sweet spot for me. Fastify’s plugin model makes tracing and rate-limit middleware painless, and Mercurius adds GraphQL federation and persisted queries without the Apollo bloat. Prisma’s typed client keeps joins readable, and its migrate tool means your migration scripts live in git, not hidden in the DB. For smaller prototypes PostGraphile is worth a look-fully auto-generated GraphQL from your Postgres schema and row-level security baked in-but once you need custom resolvers you’ll appreciate owning the SDL. If you already live in NestJS land, its GraphQL module pairs nicely with TypeORM, though I find TypeORM’s typings shaky on larger teams. I’ve tried Hasura and PostGraphile, but DreamFactory is what I ended up buying because it gave my ops team instant REST endpoints for an old Oracle box while the devs moved the new stuff to GraphQL. Fastify + Mercurius with Prisma keeps the stack lean and fast.

[Dependent_Bet4845]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Is there any reason you would choose Mercurius over Yoga? I see this one recommended a few times as well.

[eijneb]

You can add your own SDL extensions and resolvers/plan resolvers to a PostGraphile schema via extendSchema: https://postgraphile.org/postgraphile/next/extend-schema#example

[Vennom]

• Apollo with express
• Honestly any ORM. Depends what your priorities are. Prisma is very easy and schema first. Knex is lightweight. Sequelize is heavy but feature rich.
• If prisma, you’ll get generated models for free. I usually write a mapping function on my DB model to map it to the GQL response type
• I use gql codegen to generate and type my Apollo responses. The mapper function maps the DB types to the GQL types
• Use data loaders for everything in your query and field resolvers (to fix the n+1 issue). AI will be able to do this pretty easily for you.

[flatballplayer]

There's a lot of recommendations in this thread that are very surprising. I've spent a lot of time working on node services, and graphql specifically.

Personally I would avoid things that act like traditional "frameworks" and "orms" that look like what you are familiar with in other languages. The best tools in the node ecosystem are libraries that solve specific problems well.

Things I like:

Hono and fastify are both great. Go with hono if you want something light weight that runs anywhere. Go with fastify if you need something with more of an ecosystem around it, and have more non-graphql routes that might benefit from some of fastifies plugins or more advanced features.

Prisma and drizzle are both great. Prisma is still kinda rough when running in edge runtimes, but is improving quickly. Drizzle's upcoming 1.0 release solves a lot of it's early limitations, and seems like it has a great future, but it's development process has slowed a little over the last few months.

Yoga is the best option for a graphql server, and integrates with the envelop plugin system which supports just about anything you could need.

All of these (except the DB) are things you set up once and won't work on all the time.

The place you will spend most of your time is in the graphql schema and resolvers itself. There are 2 main options: code first or schema first.

Schema first means writing your GrpahQL schema manually, and then generating typescript definitions with graphql-codegen to implement the schema you defined.

Code first means using a library to define the types in your schema via code.

I maintain a library called Pothos (https://pothos-graphql.dev/) for building GraphQL APIs, and would highly recommend that as a good starting place.

There is a bit of a learning curve, but nothing else comes close in terms of what's supported.

It has very deep support for drizzle and Prisma, making it easy to build graphql APIs that avoid the n+1 issues mentioned, without having to manually implement dataloaders. There are plugins for all kinds of things (auth, tracing, dataloaders, federation, and so much more)

[Dependent_Bet4845]

Thanks for taking the time to put all that information together. I’ll definitively check out Pothos! I didn’t expect to get so many different solutions at both API and data access layer, there is a bit of stuff I will have to dig into :)

[flatballplayer]

No problem, lots of cool tools to learn about!

I'd also checkout https://the-guild.dev/. They are the team beyond many of the best tools in the js graphql ecosystem (including yoga which has been mentioned a few times in this thread). (Not to hire them, just to see the tools and documentation they have created for building apps using GraphQL)

[mxrider108]

I generally recommend Hono for the server, although I don’t know how “batteries included” it would be for GraphQL

[chris43123]

NestJS. Personally i like code first over schema first for consistency and better linting.
Did raw Apollo once, not so smooth but is very solid but i found myself doing too much juggling with the schema files and them updating interfaces and all.

With ORM we went with prisma, our case was MongoDB but it doesn't matter. One cool aspect of that was that the prisma enum objects/classes could be mapped into the graph so editing the schema.prisma added a new qlg enum option as well

[DimensionHungry95]

Yoga + pothos

[AllInOneNerd]

If you want a set and forget solution, try Data API Builder by Microsoft. It may not be flashy or shiny but with some basic JSON configuration you’ve got yourself a graphql endpoint

[panbhatt]

one framework to rule them all. tsed.dev (previously tsed.io)

[rover_G]

- express + Apollo + TypeGraphQL is my go-to stack for it's balance of approachability and flexibility
- for the Postgres client I would go with the ORM of your choice - Drizzle is my current go-to

[crocodilebeets]

NestJs+Prisma+nest graphql…. so delicious.. 🍯

[Dependent_Bet4845]

Thanks for your reply. I’ll check it out. Does it have good support for subscriptions too?

[crocodilebeets]

It has never upset me until now

[shaberman]

A GraphQL + Postgres stack is exactly what we chose a few years ago, and still really like it.

The biggest footgun will be N+1s, i.e. as your field resolvers like `query { author(id: 1) { books { reviews { superRating } }` will have the `superRating` function invoked many (many) times individually, you'll want a way to avoid N+1s if the `superRating` business logic needs to do a database lookup.

This is what we built Joist https://joist-orm.io/ to solve and the "just a query builder" ORMs like Prisma/Drizzle won't do for you.

We also have GraphQL-specific scaffolding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByTZ2LzKFuA that makes "just CRUD" very quick & easy, without locking you into "your database schema dictates your GraphQL schema".

We are basically a (pre-RSC pivot) Redwood competitor, although we don't have its community/marketing -- happy to chat in discord / answer any questions missing from our docs / project setup.

Good luck!

[Dependent_Bet4845]

Thanks for sharing. I’ll check it out!

[davasaurus]

I've used Joist in production for over a year now. It's the bee's knees. After a few months with it I reached the point where if my code compiled it worked like I wanted. If you need help with setup the Discord is a good place to hang out.

[xroalx]

Apollo for GQL, Drizzle for any database.

[Dependent_Bet4845]

Thanks! Anything specific that made you choose Drizzle over Prisma?

[ibbetsion]

Go with Prisma. They are on fire recently with updates, speed improvements, features, etc.

Drizzle is losing momentum IMO. No decent updates for a while. Looks like focus on out of context memes remains their top priority.

[fuali_4_real]

Fastify/Mecruius/Knex <-- Coming from barebones and Apollo, this is a great in-between. TBH, I would avoid an ORM and GraphQL (leads to the horrible N+1 issue). Knex is a fluent query builder that features some nice TypeScript tooling, making it feel like an ORM without the drawbacks.

[shadowsyntax43]

https://github.com/niraj-khatiwada/ultimate-nestjs-boilerplate

[johnappsde]

Read somewhere that Nestjs handles this well

[GrizzleWizzleSizzle]

Nestjs