Ask HN: ORM or Native SQL?

• cornucopia

  20 704 4.2 Rust

  Generate type-checked Rust from your PostgreSQL.

  

The best solution I've ever seen is this Rust library https://github.com/cornucopia-rs/cornucopia

You write plain SQL for you schema (just a schema.sql is enough) and plain SQL functions for your queries. Then it generates Rust types and Rust functions from from that. If you don't use Rust, maybe there's a library like that for your favorite language.

Optionally, pair it with https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker or https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (both are based off https://github.com/djrobstep/migra) to generate migrations by diffing your schema.sql files, and https://github.com/rust-db/refinery to perform those migrations.

Now, if you have simple crud needs, you should probably use https://postgrest.org/en/stable/ and not an ORM. There are packages like https://www.npmjs.com/package/@supabase/postgrest-js (for JS / typescript) and probably for other languages too.

If you insist on an ORM, the best of the bunch is prisma https://www.prisma.io/ - outside of the typescript/javascript ecosystem it has ports for some other languages (with varying degrees of completion), the one I know about is the Rust one https://prisma.brendonovich.dev/introduction

• Prisma

  444 37,328 9.9 TypeScript

  Next-generation ORM for Node.js & TypeScript | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, SQLite, MongoDB and CockroachDB

  

The best solution I've ever seen is this Rust library https://github.com/cornucopia-rs/cornucopia

You write plain SQL for you schema (just a schema.sql is enough) and plain SQL functions for your queries. Then it generates Rust types and Rust functions from from that. If you don't use Rust, maybe there's a library like that for your favorite language.

Optionally, pair it with https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker or https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (both are based off https://github.com/djrobstep/migra) to generate migrations by diffing your schema.sql files, and https://github.com/rust-db/refinery to perform those migrations.

Now, if you have simple crud needs, you should probably use https://postgrest.org/en/stable/ and not an ORM. There are packages like https://www.npmjs.com/package/@supabase/postgrest-js (for JS / typescript) and probably for other languages too.

If you insist on an ORM, the best of the bunch is prisma https://www.prisma.io/ - outside of the typescript/javascript ecosystem it has ports for some other languages (with varying degrees of completion), the one I know about is the Rust one https://prisma.brendonovich.dev/introduction

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com featured

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

• tusker

  9 198 5.8 Python

  PostgreSQL migration management tool

The best solution I've ever seen is this Rust library https://github.com/cornucopia-rs/cornucopia

You write plain SQL for you schema (just a schema.sql is enough) and plain SQL functions for your queries. Then it generates Rust types and Rust functions from from that. If you don't use Rust, maybe there's a library like that for your favorite language.

Optionally, pair it with https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker or https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (both are based off https://github.com/djrobstep/migra) to generate migrations by diffing your schema.sql files, and https://github.com/rust-db/refinery to perform those migrations.

Now, if you have simple crud needs, you should probably use https://postgrest.org/en/stable/ and not an ORM. There are packages like https://www.npmjs.com/package/@supabase/postgrest-js (for JS / typescript) and probably for other languages too.

If you insist on an ORM, the best of the bunch is prisma https://www.prisma.io/ - outside of the typescript/javascript ecosystem it has ports for some other languages (with varying degrees of completion), the one I know about is the Rust one https://prisma.brendonovich.dev/introduction

• postgres_migrator

  7 80 5.1 Rust

  A postgres migration generator and runner that uses raw declarative sql.

The best solution I've ever seen is this Rust library https://github.com/cornucopia-rs/cornucopia

You write plain SQL for you schema (just a schema.sql is enough) and plain SQL functions for your queries. Then it generates Rust types and Rust functions from from that. If you don't use Rust, maybe there's a library like that for your favorite language.

Optionally, pair it with https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker or https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (both are based off https://github.com/djrobstep/migra) to generate migrations by diffing your schema.sql files, and https://github.com/rust-db/refinery to perform those migrations.

Now, if you have simple crud needs, you should probably use https://postgrest.org/en/stable/ and not an ORM. There are packages like https://www.npmjs.com/package/@supabase/postgrest-js (for JS / typescript) and probably for other languages too.

If you insist on an ORM, the best of the bunch is prisma https://www.prisma.io/ - outside of the typescript/javascript ecosystem it has ports for some other languages (with varying degrees of completion), the one I know about is the Rust one https://prisma.brendonovich.dev/introduction

• migra

  25 2,867 0.0 Python

  Like diff but for PostgreSQL schemas

The best solution I've ever seen is this Rust library https://github.com/cornucopia-rs/cornucopia

You write plain SQL for you schema (just a schema.sql is enough) and plain SQL functions for your queries. Then it generates Rust types and Rust functions from from that. If you don't use Rust, maybe there's a library like that for your favorite language.

Optionally, pair it with https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker or https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (both are based off https://github.com/djrobstep/migra) to generate migrations by diffing your schema.sql files, and https://github.com/rust-db/refinery to perform those migrations.

Now, if you have simple crud needs, you should probably use https://postgrest.org/en/stable/ and not an ORM. There are packages like https://www.npmjs.com/package/@supabase/postgrest-js (for JS / typescript) and probably for other languages too.

If you insist on an ORM, the best of the bunch is prisma https://www.prisma.io/ - outside of the typescript/javascript ecosystem it has ports for some other languages (with varying degrees of completion), the one I know about is the Rust one https://prisma.brendonovich.dev/introduction

• refinery

  6 1,219 7.1 Rust

  Powerful SQL migration toolkit for Rust. (by rust-db)

  

The best solution I've ever seen is this Rust library https://github.com/cornucopia-rs/cornucopia

You write plain SQL for you schema (just a schema.sql is enough) and plain SQL functions for your queries. Then it generates Rust types and Rust functions from from that. If you don't use Rust, maybe there's a library like that for your favorite language.

Optionally, pair it with https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker or https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (both are based off https://github.com/djrobstep/migra) to generate migrations by diffing your schema.sql files, and https://github.com/rust-db/refinery to perform those migrations.

Now, if you have simple crud needs, you should probably use https://postgrest.org/en/stable/ and not an ORM. There are packages like https://www.npmjs.com/package/@supabase/postgrest-js (for JS / typescript) and probably for other languages too.

If you insist on an ORM, the best of the bunch is prisma https://www.prisma.io/ - outside of the typescript/javascript ecosystem it has ports for some other languages (with varying degrees of completion), the one I know about is the Rust one https://prisma.brendonovich.dev/introduction

• pggen

  11 270 6.6 Go

  Generate type-safe Go for any Postgres query. If Postgres can run the query, pggen can generate code for it.

Cornucopia is neat. I wrote a similar library in Go [1] so I'm very interested in comparing design decisions.

The pros of the generated code per query approach:

- App code is coupled to query outputs and inputs (an API of sorts), not database tables. Therefore, you can refactor your DB without changing app code.

- Real SQL with the full breadth of DB features.

- Real type-checking with what the DB supports.

The cons:

- Type mapping is surprisingly hard to get right, especially with composite types and arrays and custom type converters. For example, a query might return multiple jsonb columns but the app code wants to parse them into different structs.

- Dynamic queries don't work with prepared statements. Prepared statements only support values, not identifiers or scalar SQL sub-queries, so the codegen layer needs a mechanism to template SQL. I haven't built this out yet but would like to.

[1]: https://github.com/jschaf/pggen

• SaaSHub

  www.saashub.com featured

  SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

  

• sqlc

  170 11,012 9.6 Go

  Generate type-safe code from SQL

  

Likely depends on the language. With Go I like using https://sqlc.dev/ - it generates Go-code from a SQL script. You get the benefits of static typing for parameters and return types + it removes much of the boilerplate involved in using plain SQL. And you still get the full expressiveness of SQL. I think this is a middle ground between SQL and ORM.

• languages-that-compile-to-sql

  1 48 10.0

  A list of languages that compile to SQL

> Therefore, you can refactor your DB without changing app code.

Indeed, that's incredible! I tend to think that the actual layout of db tables a low level concern that is mainly driven by query performance and simplicity.

> - Type mapping is surprisingly hard to get right, especially with composite types and arrays and custom type converters. For example, a query might return multiple jsonb columns but the app code wants to parse them into different structs.

In Rust there's serde for converting json into structs (or enums if the shape of the json is complicated enough). Doesn't Go have a similar serialization/deserialization library?

> - Dynamic queries don't work with prepared statements. Prepared statements only support values, not identifiers or scalar SQL sub-queries, so the codegen layer needs a mechanism to template SQL. I haven't built this out yet but would like to.

In this case, what about stored procedures?

But, generally, instead of a template language for SQL, I would like to have a real compile-to-SQL higher level language, that could also do dynamic queries. The trouble with templating is that dynamic queries are hard to do in a type-safe manner, and it's hard to prevent generating invalid SQL when you have a bad template substitution (and then you get bad error messages from the db). There's a few languages like this do this https://github.com/ajnsit/languages-that-compile-to-sql but none fits the bill

• safeql

  4 15 0.0 Java

  Composable / async / functional / type-safe / parallel-pipelined queries and relations without SQL injection or N+1s. (by karmakaze)

I completely agree. I pretty much stopped using Spring/Boot because of it, even though it could be used without Hibernate/JPA.

I tried sql2o and later switched to jdbi and Javalin for a lightweight framework. I started making a typesafe library[0] that maps bottom-up like SQL expressions but development as stalled as I haven't been doing much side-project work to use it.

[0] https://github.com/karmakaze/safeql

Suggest a related project