Dapper vs. Entity Framework: Choosing the Right ORM for Your .NET Project

When it comes to Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) in .NET, there are two popular options that are usually considered. Dapper and Entity Framework both let developers work with data in an object-oriented way, but they have differences that can make your life easier when you use them in the right place.

In this article, I’m trying to help my readers to choose the right ORM for their next project. This isn’t meant to make one of these ORMs look bad and the other one good; meanwhile, I have to give my honest opinion about the different benefits and pains that I have experienced using these ORMs.

Query Language

In Dapper, you should use raw SQL queries which is good news if you are comfortable with SQL and those queries are plain text in Visual Studio, so there is no IntelliSense or color coding for your query. For Entity Framework, you write your queries using a query language called LINQ which is very rich and easy to use for complex queries, specifically for developers who have limited SQL experience. When it comes to deciding which ORM is easier to query in, it’s very dependent on the developers’ experience. Based on my personal take, it’s easier to write your queries in SQL itself instead of LINQ because when it comes to complex queries, especially for a…