Does Fastify Work With Prisma?

Fully CompatibleLast verified: 2026-02-20

Fastify and Prisma work excellently together, providing a fast HTTP server with type-safe database access.

Quick Facts

Compatibility

full

Setup Difficulty

Easy

Official Integration

No — community maintained

Confidence

high

Minimum Versions

Fastify: 3.0.0

Prisma: 2.0.0

How Fastify Works With Prisma

Fastify and Prisma integrate seamlessly because Prisma is database-agnostic and works as a standard Node.js library. Fastify's plugin system and hooks make it trivial to set up a Prisma client instance that's available across your application. The typical pattern is to create a Prisma plugin that initializes the client once and injects it into the Fastify instance, making it accessible in all route handlers via `fastify.prisma`. This approach keeps your application performant—Fastify's low overhead complements Prisma's optimized query generation. The developer experience is particularly smooth with TypeScript: Prisma's generated types ensure type safety on database operations while Fastify's schema validation catches API contract violations. Connection pooling is handled automatically by Prisma's query engine, so you get efficient database resource management without extra configuration. The combination is ideal for building REST APIs, GraphQL servers, or any data-driven application where you need both speed and type safety.

Best Use Cases

→Building REST APIs with automatic OpenAPI documentation and type-safe database queries

→Real-time applications using Fastify WebSockets with Prisma for transactional data operations

→Microservices that need lightweight HTTP servers with strong type guarantees across service boundaries

→Full-stack TypeScript applications where frontend and backend share generated types from Prisma schema

Quick Setup

bash

npm install fastify prisma @prisma/client && npx prisma init

typescript

import Fastify from 'fastify';
import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';

const prisma = new PrismaClient();
const fastify = Fastify({ logger: true });

fastify.decorate('prisma', prisma);

fastify.get('/users/:id', async (request, reply) => {
  const { id } = request.params as { id: string };
  const user = await fastify.prisma.user.findUnique({
    where: { id }
  });
  return user;
});

fastify.post('/users', async (request, reply) => {
  const { email, name } = request.body as { email: string; name: string };
  const user = await fastify.prisma.user.create({
    data: { email, name }
  });
  return user;
});

fastify.listen({ port: 3000 }, (err) => {
  if (err) throw err;
});

Known Issues & Gotchas

warning

Prisma Client is not compatible with serverless/edge environments out of the box due to long-lived connection requirements

Fix: For serverless Fastify deployments, use Prisma Data Proxy or manage connection pooling explicitly

warning

Hot module reloading can cause multiple Prisma Client instances, leading to connection pool exhaustion during development

Fix: Use a singleton pattern for Prisma client initialization and configure HMR properly with Fastify's lifecycle hooks

info

Prisma migrations require separate CLI commands and aren't automatically run on server startup

Fix: Run `prisma migrate deploy` in your CI/CD pipeline or deployment scripts before starting Fastify

Alternatives

•Express with TypeORM - more established but higher overhead than Fastify
•Hono with Drizzle ORM - modern lightweight alternative with better edge runtime support
•Nest.js with Prisma - opinionated framework with built-in dependency injection and Prisma integration

Resources

docsFastify Official Documentation docsPrisma Documentation tutorialFastify and Prisma Setup Guide docsFastify Plugins Best Practices

Related Compatibility Guides

Ruby on Rails + Prisma Fastify + PostgreSQL Fastify + UploadThing Fastify + Paddle Fastify + Drizzle ORM Fastify + TypeORM

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