Prisma is an evolution of Graphcool Framework. Graphcool Framework is a complete backend as a service that enable you to create a database, configure permissions and write business logic that is deployed to serverless functions.

In contrast, Prisma focuses exclusively on the database aspect and brings many advancements compared to Graphcool.

We have created some nifty open source libraries to bring a lot of the same out-of-the-box experience provided by Graphcool Framework to more traditional GraphQL backend development with Prisma, including GraphQL Bindings that provide smart schema stitching and auto-complete in your editor as seen in the video on https://www.prismagraphql.com/

Prisma incorporates 2 years of learnings from operating Graphcool at scale and writing big applications with GraphQL. I'm super excited to be part of the community that is shaping around GraphQL and happy to answer any questions about GraphQL in general (especially from the backend perspective) or Prisma specifically.

Prisma is the unbundled version of Graphcool.

Graphcool's main selling point was that everything was hosted: "The Parse for GraphQL".

Prisma's main selling point is that you can host your own database wherever you want and Prisma generates the Schema and TypeDefs for you based on CRUD operations. Compared to Graphcool, you get one instead of two endpoints (Relay and Simple API endpoints are the same in Prisma). Now you can connect your client directly to the Prisma endpoint or you build a GraphQL Server (with graphql-yoga or apollo-server) between your client and database.

All resolvers (auth, file hosting, etc) are written on this GraphQL Server level.

Prisma is a lot more flexible and now also bigger enterprises with legacy databases can use them more easily.

Hope that answers your question. Again, I don't work there but really like their product.