- Photon
- Can I still access my database directly (e.g. using raw SQL)?
- Is Photon an ORM?
- Will Photon support more databases (and other data sources) in the future?
- How can I see the generated queries that Photon sends to my database?
- How do schema migrations work with Photon?
- Is Photon production-ready? Should I start using it?
- Lift
- Other
While it's currently not possible to use Photon to directly access your database, this feature has a priority on our list and is one of the first things we are working on during the Preview period. You can track the progress of this feature here.
In the meanwhile, you can use Photon alongside other lightweight query builders such as knex.
ORMs are typically object-oriented mapping layers that map classes to tables. A record is represented as an object that not only carries data but also implements various behaviours for storage, retrieval, serialization and deserialization of its own data, sometimes it also implements business/domain logic. Photon acts more as a query builder returning plain objects with a focus on structural typing rather than rich object behavior.
Yes. Photon is based on Prisma's query engine that can connect to any data source that provides a proper connector implementation. There will be built-in connectors such as the current ones for PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite.
However, it's also possible to build your own connectors, more documentation on that topic will follow soon.
There will be rich query analytics for Photon soon. For now you can set the debug option to true when instanting your Photon instance. Learn more in the docs.
Photon is not opinionated on how exactly you migrate your database schema. You can keep your existing migration system and simply re-introspect your database schema after each migration to update Photon. Learn more in the docs. You can also always use Lift to perform your migrations based on Prisma's declarative data model definition.
Photon is not yet production-ready, it has a number of severe limitations that don't make it suitable for production uses and heavy loads. You can track the progress of the release process on isprisma2ready.com. While it shouldn't be used for critical applications yet, Photon is definitely in a usable state. You can help us accelerate the release process by using it and sharing your feedback with us.
There's absolutely no lock-in with Lift. To stop using Lift, you can simply delete your Prisma schema file, all existing migration folders on your file system and the migrations table in your database/schema.
Each migration is represented via its own directory on your file system. The name of each directory contains a timestamp so that the order of all migrations in the project history can be maintained. Each of these migration directories contains detailled information about the respective migration, for example which steps are executed (and in what order) as well as a human-friendly markdown file that summarizes the most important information about the migration, such as the source and the target data model definition of the migration. This information can also be found in the migrations table in your database/schema.
Also, the lift CLI constantly prints the migration statements and more information when you're running its commands.
Every migration can be extended with before/after hooks. You can simply put executable scripts into a migration folder that are named before and/or after (or before.{sh,js} and/or after.{sh,js}) and they will be picked up automatically by Lift when you're running prisma2 lift up.
Lift is not yet production-ready, it has a number of severe limitations that don't make it suitable for production uses. You can track the progress of the release process on isprisma2ready.com.
While it shouldn't be used for critical applications yet, Photon is definitely in a usable state. You can help us accelerate the release process by using it and sharing your feedback with us.
Yes, Prisma 1 will continue to be maintained. However, most Prisma engineering resources will go into the development of Prisma 2 (i.e. Photon and Lift).
There will be no new features developed for Prisma 1.