# Grafbase vs Pothos

| Attribute | Grafbase | Pothos |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 56.2 (71% (medium)) | 58.8 (48% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 316 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 2,623 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | - | 477,926 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A GraphQL federation gateway for composing multiple GraphQL services into a unified API. The platform has been sunsetted and is in maintenance-only mode. It is indexed under GraphQL Tools.","source":"https://grafbase.com/","question":"What is Grafbase?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Grafbase does not publish its prices. Pricing is quoted on request, across 2 plans (Open Source and Enterprise), so the figure depends on your seat count and requirements. We record this as a pricing-transparency signal rather than guessing a number. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://grafbase.com/pricing","question":"How much does Grafbase cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Grafbase supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://grafbase.com/pricing","question":"What platforms does Grafbase support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Grafbase can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://grafbase.com/","question":"Can Grafbase be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 7 integrations for Grafbase, including Snowflake, NATS, Kafka, Postgres, gRPC, REST and JWT. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://grafbase.com/pricing","question":"What does Grafbase integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 for Grafbase. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Grafbase not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://grafbase.com/blog/security-considerations-in-graphql-federation","question":"What security certifications does Grafbase have?","confidence":0.7}]` | `[{"answer":"Pothos is a GraphQL schema builder for TypeScript that emphasizes type-safety and ease of use. It features a plugin ecosystem for extending functionality while maintaining zero-overhead at runtime. It is indexed under GraphQL Tools.","source":"https://pothos-graphql.dev/","question":"What is Pothos?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Pothos is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the ISC licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://pothos-graphql.dev/","question":"Is Pothos free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Pothos supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://pothos-graphql.dev/","question":"What platforms does Pothos support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Pothos can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://pothos-graphql.dev/","question":"Can Pothos be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 6 integrations for Pothos, including Prisma, NestJS, Next.js, Apollo, Mercurius and OpenTelemetry. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://pothos-graphql.dev/","question":"What does Pothos integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Pothos is published under the ISC licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos","question":"Is Pothos open source?","confidence":0.99}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A GraphQL federation gateway that aggregates and unifies multiple GraphQL APIs into a single interface, with built-in governance and analytics capabilities. | A GraphQL schema builder that leverages TypeScript's type system to minimize manual type annotations, integrating with databases like Prisma and Drizzle through a modular plugin architecture. |
| features.capabilities | `{"role":"gateway","caching":true,"language":"GraphQL","federation":true,"managed_cloud":true,"self_hostable":true,"subscriptions":true,"auth_directives":true,"schema_approach":"schema_first","db_introspection":true}` | `{"role":"schema_builder","language":"TypeScript","federation":true,"self_hostable":true,"subscriptions":true,"schema_approach":"code_first","type_generation":true,"db_introspection":true}` |
| integrations.count | 7 | 12 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Snowflake"},{"name":"NATS"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Postgres"},{"name":"gRPC"},{"name":"REST"},{"name":"JWT"}]` | `[{"name":"Prisma"},{"name":"NestJS"},{"name":"Next.js"},{"name":"Apollo"},{"name":"Mercurius"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"Drizzle","native":true,"category":"database","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Zod","native":true,"category":"validation","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Valibot","native":true,"category":"validation","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"ArkType","native":true,"category":"validation","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"GraphQL Yoga","native":false,"category":"server","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Apollo Server","native":false,"category":"server","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Apollo Federation","native":true,"category":"federation","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"New Relic","native":true,"category":"observability","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Dataloader","native":true,"category":"data_loading","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Grafast","native":true,"category":"execution_engine","direction":"bidirectional"}]` |
| language.primary | - | TypeScript |
| license.spdx | - | ISC |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open Source","features":["High performance Rust gateway","Open-source license","No feature gating","Community support"],"description":"High performance Rust gateway with no feature gating","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","features":["Unified schema composition","Schema proposal & approval workflows","Entity-level caching","Persisted queries","Intelligent query execution","Rate limiting","Trusted documents","SAML SSO","Fine-grained access control","Cloud, hybrid, or on-prem hosting","Dedicated customer success team","Slack Connect channel","24/7/365 enterprise support","Up to 99.99% SLA"],"description":"Fully self-hostable with dedicated support and 99.99% SLA","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free open-source tier. 60-day free trial. Enterprise pricing available via contact sales.","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://grafbase.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T17:05:27.230Z","freeTrialDays":60,"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://pothos-graphql.dev/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T09:17:12.302Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | freemium | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | - |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-drizzle%400.20.0","date":"2026-09-14T17:05:23Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-drizzle@0.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-zod%404.3.2","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:53Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-zod@4.3.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-validation%404.3.4","date":"2026-09-13T22:49:26Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-validation@4.3.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-validation%404.3.3","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:26Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-validation@4.3.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-tracing%401.1.4","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:38Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-tracing@1.1.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-sub-graph%404.5.3","date":"2026-09-13T22:49:23Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-sub-graph@4.5.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-sub-graph%404.5.2","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:17Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-sub-graph@4.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-smart-subscriptions%404.1.7","date":"2026-09-13T22:49:14Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-smart-subscriptions@4.1.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-smart-subscriptions%404.1.6","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:29Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-smart-subscriptions@4.1.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-scope-auth%404.2.1","date":"2026-09-13T22:48:59Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-scope-auth@4.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-scope-auth%404.2.0","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:35Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-scope-auth@4.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-relay%404.8.1","date":"2026-09-13T22:49:08Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-relay@4.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-relay%404.8.0","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:14Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-relay@4.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-prisma%404.17.0","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:44Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-prisma@4.17.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-prisma-utils%401.3.6","date":"2026-09-13T22:49:11Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-prisma-utils@1.3.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-prisma-utils%401.3.5","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:59Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-prisma-utils@1.3.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-mocks%404.1.4","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:56Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-mocks@4.1.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-federation%404.5.3","date":"2026-09-13T22:48:56Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-federation@4.5.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-federation%404.5.2","date":"2026-09-13T21:56:50Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-federation@4.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/hayes/pothos/releases/tag/%40pothos/plugin-errors%404.9.3","date":"2026-09-13T22:49:17Z","type":"stable","version":"@pothos/plugin-errors@4.9.3"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.99 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=npm&package_name=%40pothos%2Fcore&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (GraphQL Tools)

| Capability | Grafbase | Pothos |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Role | Gateway / federation | Schema builder |
| Primary language | GraphQL | TypeScript |
| **Modelling** |  |  |
| Schema approach | Schema-first | Code-first |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Federation / subgraph composition | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Realtime** |  |  |
| Real-time subscriptions | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Performance** |  |  |
| Response / edge caching | ✓ | - |
| **DX** |  |  |
| Typed code generation | - | ✓ |
| **Automation** |  |  |
| Generates API from a database | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Security** |  |  |
| Built-in authz / permissions | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Official hosted offering | ✓ | - |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T20:08:15.613Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*