Review of LINQ to SQL powered by the Slant community.
LINQ to SQL allows the direct 1-1 mapping of a Microsoft SQL Server database to .NET classes, and querying of the resulting objects using LINQ. It can only be used with other databases when a 3rd party driver like DbLinq is used. An alternative that supports more databases is LINQ to DB.
Read: What You Can Do With LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Relational Data: Who’s Who?.
A useful tool (that uses Linq to SQL itself) is LINQPad.
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Pros
Pro Free
Cons
Con SQL Server oriented
To use other databases than Microsoft SQL Server, 3rd party software is needed.