ADO .NET Entity Framework vs Orasis Mapping Studio Comparison

ADO.NET Entity Framework is the latest technology from Microsoft for mapping Database Tables to Entity classes. It follows the same coding pattern as ADO.NET, which typically includes opening a connection, building a Command from a Query, and then reading the Results. The major difference is that in ADO.NET Entity Framework, the query is a SQL like query, that queries the entities and the results are Entity Objects and not Data Tables or data readers.

Orasis Mapping Studio provides the same level of abstraction to your database, which executes queries and returns .NET objects. The difference is how it is done. Orasis keeps performance in mind and therefore uses basic ADO.NET constructs such as SQL, Commands and DataReaders to achieve the same goals.

The code generated by the Orasis Mapping Studio is open to read and see; there is no hidden translation of Query languages or Objects underneath. It is the What You See Is What You Get (WSIWYG) of data access. The results of the queries are mapped to plain .NET Objects (POCOs) to reduce memory overhead and enable the use of serialization.

Why use Orasis over Entity Framework?

To use the Entity Framework, there is a significant amount of Entity Modeling required for a medium to large scale project. There is a new Query Language introduced that is similar yet different from SQL and has a steep learning curve. It also does not support all the advanced constructs of SQL. The code to access the Entities includes statements to open connections, create commands, execute queries, and return results. All the code is required to be written and maintained manually. The overall development time is not significantly reduced. The performance of the Entity Framework is also a limiting factor. It is one of the slowest when compared to the major data access layer technologies in the industry.

With the Orasis Mapping Studio all the code is generated based on mapping SQL Queries and Objects Visually. This significantly reduces development time as no code is required to be written and maintained. The query language is standard SQL with a Query Designer provided to eliminate the need for learning any new querying language. The mappings are all done visually; therefore the learning curve is negligible. The Unit Test Workbench built in to the Studio lets you test your methods within the IDE showing performance metrics and resultant data. This eliminates any surprises down the road and lets the developer feel confident that the data access layer is well performing and accurate.



The Orasis Mapping Studio also takes advantage of the most basic Object Oriented Constructs such as Inheritance and Polymorphism. The Studio’s Class Reflector and Mapper, allows you to map data to any .NET object whether it is generated by the studio or developed externally in your project. It allows you to map into nested objects, replace abstract classes or interfaces with their concrete implementations when needed.

Orasis Mapping Studio provides true Object Oriented Data Access such as the Entity Framework aims to, but eliminates any performance lags, learning curves and coding required to provide the developer a clean, robust, well performing, well abstracted data layer in minutes!