Some backend libraries let you write SQL queries as they are and deliver them to the database. They still handle making the connection, pooling, etc.
ORMs introduce a different API for making SQL queries, with the aim to make it easier. But I find them always subpar to SQL, and often times they miss advanced features (and sometimes not even those advanced).
It also means every time I use a ORM, I have to learn this ORM’s API.
SQL is already a high level language abstracting inner workings of the database. So I find the promise of ease of use not to beat SQL. And I don’t like abstracting an already high level abstraction.
Alright, I admit, there are a few advantages:
- if I don’t know SQL and don’t plan on learning it, it is easier to learn a ORM
- if I want better out of the box syntax highlighting (as SQL queries may be interpreted as pure strings)
- if I want to use structures similar to my programming language (classes, functions, etc).
But ultimately I find these benefits far outweighed by the benefits of pure sql.
Composable querying/pushdown is nice but transaction management is huge. It’s not an easy task to correctly implement a way to share transactions between methods and between repository classes. But the alternative is, your transactions are limited to individual methods (or you don’t use them, and you risk leaving your database in an inconsistent state without manual cleanup).