Ariadne vs Mercurius
Ariadne
ariadnegraphql.orgMercurius
mercurius.devSide by side
| Figure | Ariadne | Mercurius |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · GraphQL Tools | 8.1 (#5) | 6.5 (#24) |
| Integrations | The site describes interoperability with web frameworks and shows a Django integration example. | The integrations documentation lists Nexus, TypeGraphQL, GQLoom, Prisma, mercurius-integration-testing, OpenTelemetry, and NestJS. |
| Security | Ariadne's security documentation says GraphQL APIs can carry risks including denial-of-service attacks and credential leakage, and provides mitigation guidance. | Mercurius includes CSRF prevention, which the documentation says is disabled by default and must be enabled in configuration. |
Plans
In their own words
Ariadne
Ariadne is an open-source Python library for building GraphQL APIs with a schema-first design. Developers describe an API using GraphQL Schema Definition Language and connect schema fields to application logic with resolver functions. The server supports asynchronous and synchronous query execution and can be served through WSGI or ASGI apps. The project describes interoperability with web frameworks and includes a Django integration example. Ariadne Codegen creates a typed Python client and Pydantic models from a GraphQL schema and operations; generated client results are validated against those models at runtime. An optional SQLAlchemy 2.0 integration supports synchronous sessions in WSGI and ASGI, while AsyncSession is limited to ASGI and has a documented limitation involving sibling root fields. Ariadne implements the GraphQL multipart request specification for uploads. Its default Upload scalar is write-only and supports values passed through variables. Security documentation discusses denial-of-service and credential-leakage risks and gives mitigation guidance. Ariadne is self-hosted and free, and the site lists Linux, web, and API platforms.