Use Prisma with Bun

Note — Prisma’s dynamic subcommand loading system currently requires npm to be installed alongside Bun. This affects certain CLI commands like prisma init, prisma migrate, etc. Generated code works perfectly with Bun using the new prisma-client generator.

Create a new project

Prisma works out of the box with Bun. First, create a directory and initialize it with bun init.

terminal

mkdir prisma-app
cd prisma-app
bun init

Install Prisma dependencies

Then install the Prisma CLI (prisma), Prisma Client (@prisma/client), and the LibSQL adapter as dependencies.

terminal

bun add -d prisma
bun add @prisma/client @prisma/adapter-libsql

Initialize Prisma with SQLite

We’ll use the Prisma CLI with bunx to initialize our schema and migration directory. For simplicity we’ll be using an in-memory SQLite database.

terminal

bunx --bun prisma init --datasource-provider sqlite

This creates a basic schema. We need to update it to use the new Rust-free client with Bun optimization. Open prisma/schema.prisma and modify the generator block, then add a User model.

prisma/schema.prisma

  generator client {
    provider = "prisma-client"
    output = "./generated"
    engineType = "client"
    runtime = "bun"
  }

  datasource db {
    provider = "sqlite"
    url      = env("DATABASE_URL")
  }

  model User { 
    id    Int     @id @default(autoincrement()) 
    email String  @unique
    name  String?
  } 

Create and run database migration

Then generate and run initial migration.This will generate a .sql migration file in prisma/migrations, create a new SQLite instance, and execute the migration against the new instance.

terminal

 bunx --bun prisma migrate dev --name init

Environment variables loaded from .env
Prisma schema loaded from prisma/schema.prisma
Datasource "db": SQLite database "dev.db" at "file:./dev.db"

SQLite database dev.db created at file:./dev.db

Applying migration `20251014141233_init`

The following migration(s) have been created and applied from new schema changes:

prisma/migrations/
 └─ 20251014141233_init/
   └─ migration.sql

Your database is now in sync with your schema.

✔ Generated Prisma Client (6.17.1) to ./generated in 18ms

Generate Prisma Client

As indicated in the output, Prisma re-generates our Prisma client whenever we execute a new migration. The client provides a fully typed API for reading and writing from our database. You can manually re-generate the client with the Prisma CLI.

terminal

bunx --bun prisma generate

Initialize Prisma Client with LibSQL

Now we need to create a Prisma client instance. Create a new file prisma/db.ts to initialize the PrismaClient with the LibSQL adapter.

prisma/db.ts

import { PrismaClient } from "./generated/client";
import { PrismaLibSQL } from "@prisma/adapter-libsql";

const adapter = new PrismaLibSQL({ url: process.env.DATABASE_URL || "" });
export const prisma = new PrismaClient({ adapter });

Create a test script

Let’s write a script to create a new user, then count the number of users in the database.

index.ts

import { prisma } from "./prisma/db";

// create a new user
await prisma.user.create({
  data: {
    name: "John Dough",
    email: `john-${Math.random()}@example.com`,
  },
});

// count the number of users
const count = await prisma.user.count();
console.log(`There are ${count} users in the database.`);

Run and test the application

Let’s run this script with bun run. Each time we run it, a new user is created.

terminal

bun run index.ts

Created john-0.12802932895402364@example.com
There are 1 users in the database.

terminal

bun run index.ts

Created john-0.8671308799782803@example.com
There are 2 users in the database.

terminal

bun run index.ts

Created john-0.4465968383115295@example.com
There are 3 users in the database.

That’s it! Now that you’ve set up Prisma using Bun, we recommend referring to the official Prisma docs as you continue to develop your application.

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Use Prisma with Bun