Supercharge Your Prisma Queries with Accelerate

If you're using Prisma ORM and want faster response times—especially in serverless or edge environments—Prisma Accelerate might be what you need. It’s a global caching layer that sits between your application and your database, reducing query latency without complex setup.

Let’s break down what it is, how it works, and how to get started.

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What Is Prisma Accelerate?

Prisma Accelerate is a managed edge cache service by Prisma. It acts as a proxy that sits between your application and your database, caching query responses at the edge to speed up reads.

Why Use It?

• Reduce database load

• Faster cold starts in serverless functions

• Improve performance on globally distributed apps

• No need to build your own caching layer

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How It Works

Prisma Accelerate intercepts your Prisma Client queries and caches the responses using intelligent cache strategies.

• Reads: Cached at the edge with optional time-to-live (TTL) and stale-while-revalidate (SWR) policies.

• Writes: Automatically trigger cache invalidation.

• Integration: Works with @prisma/accelerate and your existing Prisma setup.

You don’t need to change your database schema—just tweak your Prisma Client setup and start caching selectively.

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Setting Up Prisma Accelerate

1. Install the Package

npm install @prisma/accelerate

2. Enable Accelerate in Your Prisma Schema

Open your schema.prisma file and add the accelerate preview feature:

prismaCopyEditgenerator client {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
  previewFeatures = ["accelerate"]
}

Then regenerate the Prisma Client:

npx prisma generate

3. Wrap Your Prisma Client with Accelerate

import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client'
import { withAccelerate } from '@prisma/accelerate'

const prisma = withAccelerate(new PrismaClient())

Now your queries go through the Accelerate proxy.

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Using Caching Strategies

You can cache specific queries like this:

const users = await prisma.user.findMany({
  cacheStrategy: {
    ttl: 60,      // Cache for 60 seconds
    swr: 300      // Serve stale data for up to 5 minutes while revalidating
  }
})

This lets you fine-tune performance without risking stale or incorrect data.

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Best Practices

• Use caching only on read-heavy, low-churn queries.

• Keep TTL low if data changes often.

• Use SWR to balance freshness with speed.

• Monitor cache hit/miss ratios and adjust.

⚡ Real-World Speed: Prisma Accelerate in Action

The picture shows the dramatic reduction in query response time after enabling Prisma Accelerate. With edge caching in place, repeated queries return significantly faster—ideal for performance-critical applications and global users.

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Final Thoughts

Prisma Accelerate is a fast, drop-in performance upgrade for many apps. Whether you’re dealing with slow cold starts in serverless functions or just want to reduce DB load, it’s worth trying.

Set it up, try caching a few queries, and see the speed boost for yourself.