Crates / Compare / sqlx vs sea-orm
Rust crates side by side · data Oct 24, 2026
sqlx vs sea-orm
Short answersea-orm is built on sqlx: pick by whether you want an ORM on top. By steady daily use, sqlx is bigger: 540,430 real downloads a day against 59,264 for sea-orm (9.1x). 4,124 crates depend on sqlx and 535 on sea-orm. sqlx last shipped 5 months ago, sea-orm 27 days ago.
sqlx
Widely usedWidely used and gaining.
4,124 crates depend on it; no release in the last 90 days, so its count is all steady use.
🧰 The Rust SQL Toolkit. An async, pure Rust SQL crate featuring compile-time checked queries without a DSL. Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite.
sea-orm
EstablishedEstablished and steady.
535 crates depend on it; downloads don't spike on releases.
🐚 An async & dynamic ORM for Rust
sqlxsea-orm · 100% = that crate's normal quiet day, so a spike to 300% is triple its usual traffic
Every number, side by side
| Same window, same method | sqlx | sea-orm |
|---|---|---|
| Real downloads a day | 540,430 | 59,264 |
| Crates that depend on it | 4,124 | 535 |
| Last release | 0.9.0, 5 months ago | 2.0.4, 27 days ago |
| Trend vs the field | +12% | -5% |
| Release-window share | 0.0% | 7.4% |
| Downloads in the window | 49,874,786 | 5,397,939 |
| All-time downloads | 172,259,351 | 27,671,814 |
| Versions published | 59 | 142 |
| License | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| MSRV | 1.94.0 | 1.94.0 |
| First published | Jun 6, 2019 | Aug 7, 2021 |
Which to pick
- Pick sqlx if you want SQL and a thin, async toolkit.
- Pick sea-orm if you want an async ORM with entities, relations and migrations.
- Bottom line: sea-orm is built on sqlx: pick by whether you want an ORM on top. (checked against each project's docs, Oct 24, 2026)
- Downloads tell you what is common, not what fits. Each crate's own description above says what it is for; when the jobs differ, pick by the job.
- When both fit, prefer the one more crates depend on (sqlx, 4,124 dependents): more eyes, more answered questions, and you may already have it in your tree.
- Check the release dates against your own pace: sqlx 5 months ago, sea-orm 27 days ago.
Also in this space
Method
Real downloads = the median day with no release that day or the day before, from the crates.io API (Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026). Raw crates.io counts include CI and bots and run high (why); the method is from our 90-day study. People search for this pair: Google suggests "sqlx vs seaorm".
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