# Alembic vs Django ORM

| Attribute | Alembic | Django ORM |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 65.7 (43% (low)) | 72.1 (33% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 15 | 73 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 52,456 | 114,817 |
| adoption.github_stars | 4,340 | 88,955 |
| deployment.options | - | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Alembic is an open-source database migrations tool that provides transactional DDL support, auto-generation of migration scripts, and non-linear versioning with dependency-graph structure for managing database schema changes. | Django provides a database-abstraction API for structuring and manipulating application data through an object-relational mapping layer. It enables creation, retrieval, updating, and deletion of database objects using Python models. |
| features.capabilities | `{"raw_sql":true,"multi_db":true,"languages":"Python","relations":true,"migrations":true,"schema_first":true}` | `{"raw_sql":true,"multi_db":true,"languages":"Python","relations":true,"migrations":true,"type_safe_queries":true}` |
| language.primary | Python | Python |
| license.spdx | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://alembic.sqlalchemy.org/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T16:51:56.374Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/stable/topics/db/queries/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T09:19:25.676Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 17 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_19_1","date":"2026-08-08T16:32:07Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_19_1"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_19_0","date":"2026-08-04T18:57:11Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_19_0"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_18_5","date":"2026-06-25T15:21:00Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_18_5"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_18_4","date":"2026-02-10T16:00:54Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_18_4"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_18_3","date":"2026-01-29T20:24:21Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_18_3"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_18_2","date":"2026-01-28T21:23:36Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_18_2"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_18_1","date":"2026-01-14T18:53:22Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_18_1"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_18_0","date":"2026-01-09T21:22:29Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_18_0"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_17_2","date":"2025-11-14T20:35:09Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_17_2"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_17_1","date":"2025-10-29T00:23:22Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_17_1"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_17_0","date":"2025-10-11T18:40:20Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_17_0"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_16_5","date":"2025-08-27T18:02:11Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_16_5"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_16_4","date":"2025-07-10T16:17:25Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_16_4"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_16_3","date":"2025-07-08T18:57:56Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_16_3"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_16_2","date":"2025-06-16T18:05:14Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_16_2"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_16_1","date":"2025-05-21T23:11:12Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_16_1"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_16_0","date":"2025-05-21T19:18:54Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_16_0"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_15_2","date":"2025-03-28T13:52:07Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_15_2"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_15_1","date":"2025-03-04T22:02:46Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_15_1"},{"url":"https://github.com/sqlalchemy/alembic/releases/tag/rel_1_15_0","date":"2025-03-04T17:57:42Z","type":"stable","version":"rel_1_15_0"}]` | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 6.2 | 6.6 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=alembic&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":100,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=django&per_page=100","last_12m":31,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (ORM & Database Tools)

| Capability | Alembic | Django ORM |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Type-safe queries | - | ✓ |
| Schema migrations | ✓ | ✓ |
| Relations / joins API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Languages | Python | Python |
| **Modelling** |  |  |
| Schema-first modelling | ✓ | - |
| **Flexibility** |  |  |
| Raw SQL escape hatch | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Portability** |  |  |
| Multiple database backends | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Connection pooling | - | - |
| **DX** |  |  |
| Data browser / studio | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:12:27.546Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*