Customer story
How Panther keeps data consistent across microservices in 160+ countries with Prisma
Panther, a global payroll and compliance platform, runs a distributed microservices architecture behind a federated GraphQL API. It uses Prisma ORM to guarantee that the data flowing through that API is valid and correctly shaped, no matter which service it came from.
Prisma lets Panther's independent service teams move fast while keeping data consistent across the whole platform, giving them faster time to market with type safety end to end.
Customer
About Panther
Panther is a global payroll and compliance platform that helps organizations hire remote talent across borders. Operating in over 160 countries, it handles hiring, onboarding, payroll, benefits administration, and labor-law compliance. Panther is a 100% remote company in a period of significant growth, having raised $2.5M in its latest funding round.
Industry
Global payroll & compliance
Scale
160+ countries, 100% remote, $2.5M raised
Stack
TypeScript, Node.js, MySQL, MongoDB, GraphQL (Apollo Federation), React
Using
Prisma ORM · Prisma Data Proxy
The challenge
Panther set out to build a complex platform from multiple independent services, and needed to keep data consistent across a distributed microservices architecture. Its domain-driven design and federated GraphQL API depended on reliable database interaction underneath.
Many independent services. Each team owns its own service, but the data has to stay consistent across all of them.
A federated GraphQL API. Data from many services funnels into one API, and its shape has to be guaranteed.
Reliable database interaction. A distributed architecture across borders needs database tooling teams can depend on.
Why Panther chose Prisma
Before committing, co-founder and CTO Vasil Popovski looked hard at whether Prisma was a technology Panther could rely on for the long run, weighing its backing, community, and documentation. On the product side, the draw was faster time to market, developer productivity, type safety, and guaranteed data structures through the GraphQL API.
A technology to rely on
Backing, community, and complete documentation that made Prisma safe to standardize on.
Guaranteed data shape
Type safety that ensures the data reaching the GraphQL API is valid and correctly shaped.
Faster time to market
Developer productivity that helps independent teams ship quickly.
“I did a lot of investigation on whether Prisma was going to be supported by its creators, whether it's something we can rely on and will be here in the long run. I also looked at the community, which is an important factor when switching to a new technology, and finally the completeness of the documentation.”
Vasil Popovski
Co-founder & CTO, Panther
How they use Prisma
Panther's platform is built in TypeScript and Node.js, with MySQL and MongoDB behind the services, a React frontend, and a federated GraphQL API using Apollo Federation, with Dataloaders batching and caching requests. Prisma ORM sits in the services as the database layer, guaranteeing the shape of the data that funnels through the main GraphQL API. Prisma Data Proxy handles database connections for serverless without exhausting them.
This lets individual microservice teams keep their freedom while the platform maintains data consistency across the federated GraphQL layer.
generator client {
provider =
}
model User {
id String @id @default(cuid())
email String @unique
DateTime
posts Post[]
}
model Post {
String @id
author User @relation
}
Schema valid
The results
Panther built a complex, distributed platform where independent teams ship freely and the data stays consistent across all of it.
160+ countries
Automated global payroll and compliance across more than 160 countries.
Independent teams, consistent data
Microservice teams keep their freedom while data stays consistent.
One federated GraphQL API
Data from many services funnels through one API with a guaranteed shape.
We have to rely on a lot of internal APIs, and Prisma guarantees that the data and the shape of the data that gets funnelled through the main GraphQL API at the end is valid and is of a specific shape.
Vasil Popovski, Co-founder & CTO at Panther
Build on the same stack as Panther
Panther keeps data consistent across a global microservices platform. See what Prisma can do for yours.
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