SQLAlchemy
Fewer than 5 people recommend it so far, so there's no written verdict. Here is what commenters said.
Why people recommend it
“SQLAlchemy has an eDSL of SQL, so you can skip the whole ORM/table mapping layer, and just use it to programmatically construct SQL syntax”
“I am 100% sure what SQL do I want it to produce and what SQL will a particular ORM invocation produce.”
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“one Python app (FastAPI/SQLAlchemy) for the backend that exposes a REST API”
Caveats and dissent
“of all the pain points, SQLAlchemy was the worst of them.”
“Every time I use them I think to myself it would be easier to just write SQL myself”
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“But at this point I've sworn-off using query-builders and ORMs.”
Often compared with
From the makers not counted in the ranking
Threads where it came up
- Show HN: Farol – A risk map of a pull request for the person who approves it 1 mention
- SQLAlchemy 2.1.0 Released 1 mention
- What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014) 1 mention
- Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026) 1 mention
- Software Engineering Is Back 1 mention
- The Rise of SQL:the second programming language everyone needs to know 1 mention
Data: sqlalchemy.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 6
“SQLAlchemy has an eDSL of SQL, so you can skip the whole ORM/table mapping layer, and just use it to programmatically construct SQL syntax”
“of all the pain points, SQLAlchemy was the worst of them.”
“I am 100% sure what SQL do I want it to produce and what SQL will a particular ORM invocation produce.”
“one Python app (FastAPI/SQLAlchemy) for the backend that exposes a REST API”
“Every time I use them I think to myself it would be easier to just write SQL myself”
“But at this point I've sworn-off using query-builders and ORMs.”