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The best peewee alternatives

4 tools that do a similar job to peewee, 4 of them open source. Each entry says what it does and who it suits, so you can pick the one that fits instead of the most famous.

You're replacing

peewee

A small Python ORM for working with PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite databases.

  1. 1

    SQLAlchemy

    Open source · MIT · ★ 12.3k

    A Python toolkit for talking to SQL databases, from raw SQL to full object mapping.

    Best for: Python developers building applications backed by a SQL database; Teams that want control over the SQL their code produces

  2. 2

    SQLModel

    Open source · MIT · ★ 18.5k

    A Python library for working with SQL databases using Python classes, built on Pydantic and SQLAlchemy.

    Best for: Python developers building FastAPI applications that use a SQL database; Developers who already know SQLAlchemy or Pydantic and want less duplicated model code

  3. 3

    FastAPI

    Open source · MIT · ★ 105k

    A Python framework for building web APIs quickly, using standard type hints.

    Best for: Python developers building JSON APIs or back-end services; Teams that want automatic interactive API docs from their code

  4. 4

    FastAPI-MCP

    Open source · MIT · ★ 12k

    Turns the endpoints of a FastAPI app into MCP tools that AI assistants can call, with auth.

    Best for: Python developers who already have a FastAPI app and want AI assistants to use it; Teams that want to reuse existing FastAPI authentication for MCP endpoints

How we pick: tools in the same category that solve the same problem, projects that name each other as alternatives, and open-source projects that describe themselves as an alternative to peewee. We don't take payment for placement.