Alembic vs FluentMigrator
Alembic
alembic.sqlalchemy.orgFluentMigrator
fluentmigrator.github.ioSide by side
| Figure | Alembic | FluentMigrator |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Database Migration Tools | 7.9 (#12) | 8.2 (#10) |
| License | The repository license grants permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell the software, subject to its stated conditions. | The project is released under the Apache-2.0 License. |
| Support | The project directs users to GitHub Discussions for bug and feature discussion and its GitHub issue tracker for bug reports and feature requests. | The project points users to GitHub Discussions, bug reports and feature requests, and the fluent-migrator Stack Overflow tag. |
Plans
In their own words
Alembic
Alembic has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
FluentMigrator
FluentMigrator is a free .NET framework for managing database schema changes with version-controlled C# migrations. Its fluent C# API defines Up and Down methods for applying changes and rolling them back. The project lists providers for SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and Oracle, among others; provider packages are selected separately. Migrations can run inside an application, with the Migrate.exe console tool, or through dotnet-fm, which integrates with the cross-platform .NET CLI. By default, FluentMigrator creates a VersionInfo table to record completed migrations. Command-line runners can preview generated SQL without executing it, and the CLI can validate migrations before execution. The project documents .NET dependency injection integration and CI/CD examples for GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, and Jenkins. The Quick Start calls for .NET 8.0 or later, a supported database, and basic C# and database knowledge. FluentMigrator is released under the Apache-2.0 License, with releases distributed through NuGet.