Drizzle ORM: getting started with type-safe database access in Next.js

Drizzle ORM is the database toolkit used in all CheapStack kits. It provides type-safe database access for both SQLite and PostgreSQL.

Why Drizzle

• Zero-abstraction: Write SQL-like queries with TypeScript types
• Supports SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MySQL
• No code generation step (unlike Prisma)
• Tiny bundle size (compared to Prisma's ~5MB)
• Works with edge runtimes (Cloudflare Workers, Vercel Edge)

Schema definition

import { sqliteTable, text, integer } from "drizzle-orm/sqlite-core";

export const users = sqliteTable("users", {

id: text("id").primaryKey(),

name: text("name"),

email: text("email").notNull().unique(),

createdAt: integer("created_at", { mode: "timestamp" })

.$defaultFn(() => new Date()),

});

For PostgreSQL, import from drizzle-orm/pg-core instead.

Queries

import { db, users } from "@/lib/db";

// Select all users

const allUsers = await db.select().from(users);

// Insert

await db.insert(users).values({

email: "user@example.com",

name: "Alice",

});

Migrations

npm run db:generate # Generate SQL migration

npm run db:push # Apply to database

npm run db:studio # Open Drizzle Studio (GUI)

SQLite vs Postgres in Drizzle

Drizzle supports both dialects with the same query API. The CheapStack SaaS Boilerplate ($59) allows switching via environment variable:

DATABASE_TYPE=sqlite # Uses Turso/libSQL

DATABASE_TYPE=postgres # Uses Neon/any Postgres

The schema files export separate table definitions for each dialect, and the database client is initialized based on the environment variable.

About the author: Muhammad Akbar builds affordable developer tools at CheapStack and writes about bootstrapping products on realistic budgets.