Comparison

MasterRecord vs Active Record

Active Record set the standard for productive ORMs. MasterRecord brings the same code-first models, migrations, and associations to Node — plus a lambda-based query language and a choice of Active-Record or Entity-Framework styles.

At a glance

Feature by feature

Feature	MasterRecord	Active Record
Language	JavaScript	Ruby
Model definition	Code-first builder methods	Schema + model class
Migrations
Associations	belongsTo / hasMany / hasOne / through	belongs_to / has_many / through
Query style	Lambda + $$ params	Chainable + hash conditions
Save styles	Active Record + Entity Framework	Active Record
Databases	SQLite, MySQL, Postgres	SQLite, MySQL, Postgres, +
Callbacks/hooks	beforeSave / afterSave / etc.	before_save / after_save / etc.
Transformers	.set() / .get()	serialize / attribute

Show me the code

The same task, side by side

MasterRecord

class Post {
  id(db)    { db.integer().primary().auto(); }
  title(db) { db.string(); }
  User(db)  { db.belongsTo('User'); }
}

const posts = await db.Post
  .where((p) => p.title.like($$), 'Hello%')
  .toList();

Active Record

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :user
end

posts = Post.where("title LIKE ?", "Hello%").to_a

The verdict

Which should you choose?

Choose MasterRecord if you're building on Node and want Active-Record ergonomics with a typed-friendly lambda query language.

Choose Active Record if you're in Rails — Active Record is the native, deeply-integrated choice.

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