What are the best PHP ORMs?

Question

Backend DevelopmentDatabasesORMs

What are the best PHP ORMs?

19

Options
Considered

493

User
Recs.

Jan 22, 2024

Last
Updated

16 Options Considered

Best PHP ORMs	Price	Default Template Engine	Weight
76 RedBeanPHP	-	-	-
64 Doctrine ORM	-	-	-
54 Eloquent ORM	-	-	-
-- Medoo	FREE	-	-
-- Propel	-	-	-

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score 128 · Answer 1

RedBeanPHP

Top Pro

Zero configuration

It requires basically nothing except database credentials making it awesome to use. See More

Top Con

Not suitable for existing projects with a custom database

Since RBP has a no-config approach, it enforces pretty strict database conventions. This does not make it a good ORM for an existing custom database. See More

EfficientPodaga's Experience

Great piece of software! See More

Top Pro

Great for rapid development/prototyping

Since it employs a strategy of zero configuration, it can create all required databases and tables on the fly. Making it a great ORM to use when quickly prototyping a product. See More

Top Con

Doesn't empty the legacy ORM columns from the table, like user and instead only adds user_id to it

UpbeatPostverta's Experience

Easy toinstall and easy to understand and easy to modify , excelent! See More

Top Pro

SQL extensions

Offers additions to SQL that makes querying very easy. See More

Andrew Lim's Experience

Single file installation, easy to get up and running See More

Top Pro

CLI applications can be written in no time

You can generate CLI applications in no time as well. See More

ReveredAlastor's Experience

This ORM just saved me $10k. Makes my hyperproductive. See More

PrivateWongTaiSin's Experience

Creating a quick project with PHP / MySQL on back and angular on front, both discussing with JSON, handling DB with RedBean was a matter of 30mins. See More

InfluentialShimegi's Experience

I was having trouble with social network associations on Doctrine, Propel and Eloquent on a scratch basis project; RedBeans reminded the vigorous procedural programming and aimed at facilitating this ease of pain. See More

KindheartedLamia's Experience

Simple, fast and customizable. Great for begginers, good for big projects. See More

See All

score 78 · Answer 2

Doctrine ORM

Top Pro

Should feel familiar to Java developers

Since Doctrine is inspired by Hibernate, a very popular Java ORM. It should feel very familiar to Java developers who need to use a PHP ORM, especially if they have used Hibernate before. See More

Top Con

Not so easy to setup

You follow the tutorial, there are some errors, you search google, you fix them, then you go for it, then new errors... after 30mins not working, bye bye. See More

DecorousXochiquetzal's Experience

Mature, well thought ORM. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find support

Doctrine is considered the most popular PHP ORM out there. As such, it has a big community which brings a lot of perks. Namely a great deal of learning resources and it's easier to find help for any issue you might have. See More

Top Con

Requires learning a new query language

Since you need to know DQL to use Doctrine to its full potential, you need to take the time to learn and get used to it. See More

TalentedIapetus's Experience

bad See More

Top Pro

Good, constant support

Doctrine is the default ORM for Symphony, one of the most widely used PHP frameworks. This means that it's rather well-supported and will continue to be supported at least for as long as Symphony is. See More

Top Con

May be overkill for small projects

Since it's a fairly large library, it would be a bit of an overkill to be used in a small project. Since for example it wouldn't really make much sense for the ORM to take up to half of the project's size. See More

PrivateWongTaiSin's Experience

Too heavy, overkilling for a small project, not as fast to handle as others. See More

Top Pro

Provides a flexible alternative to SQL

Doctrine implements its own object-oriented SQL dialect called DQL. It's inspired by Hibernate's HQL and it provides developers with a powerful alternative which helps in gaining flexibility without having to resort to code duplication. See More

Top Con

No persistent db connections

If you have a db in a separate server, it will have a very poor performance. See More

DashingMaia's Experience

powerful See More

See All

score 84 · Answer 3

Eloquent ORM

Top Pro

Large community

Sometimes your issue can be hard to find, but certainty it was already answered before. See More

Top Con

Too much magic methods

The debug hell. See More

Luiz Barni's Experience

Eloquent is terrible for debugging and anything related to that. It is a beautifull implementation of magic methods in PHP, but they gonna give you more trouble than solutions. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation

While hard to find, the Laravel's Docs and API documentation are very good. See More

Top Con

Low performance

Eloquent tries to do too much magic, it gets slower than some concurrents. See More

A mac's Experience

Well supported as it is used in Laravel framework. No problems so far with it use, currently using together with Wordpress See More

Top Pro

Fast learning curve

Laracast and other public resources can set up your learning curve as fast as possible. See More

Top Con

No own datamapping

You gotta install plugins to be able to map your eloquent models; or you can use mutators, that results in very ugly model classes. See More

WonderfulSosamshin's Experience

Best for slim it laravel. Not testing oitside See More

TalentedIapetus's Experience

best See More

ToughAglaophonos's Experience

I think it's the best ORM. See More

DeterminedChaac's Experience

My experience is satisfactory, it's simple to use See More

See All

score 19 · Answer 4

Medoo

Top Pro

Easy to understand

Medoo is very clear to use and has well-organized documentation that makes it easy and fast to learn. There are additional 3rd party tutorials available to help as well. See More

DazzlingRadegast's Experience

Easy to use See More

Top Pro

Very lightweight

At only 20KB, it won't add much bulk to your project. See More

See All

score 31 · Answer 5

Propel

Top Pro

Powerful and versatile ORM

It requires some learning curve, but at the end it's a powerful and versatile ORM. We've been using it for a very big database in a realtime multi-frontend app with zero issues. See More

Top Con

Backward compatibiliy breaks

Since it's based on PHP 5.4+, using an older version of PHP may cause issues. See More

DecisiveEnten's Experience

No Future. Developer is quitting. See More

Top Pro

Support for a large number of databases

Since it uses PDO, it supports all PDO enabled databases, with MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, Oracle included. See More

SophisticatedIntercidona's Experience

Simple, fast, generates complete objectmodel from database schema. See More

Top Pro

Simple to learn

Propel uses Active Record, which is a rather simple to understand implementation of an ORM. It's also the most widely adopted implementation. In simple words: an object represents a row, you can create or edit an object to create or edit the corresponding row. See More

VigorousLibertas's Experience

Abandoned project See More

See All

score 5 · Answer 6

Nette

Top Pro

Open source

Nette is open source and is distributed under the MIT license. See More

Specs

Default Template Engine:Latte

Top Pro

Built around good programming practices

Nette is built to help developers create good, maintainable code using the DRY principle. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 7

Solr

Top Pro

SpellChecker

Solr allows has the functionality to check and correct spelling mistakes in search queries. The three main implementations are: IndexBasedSpellChecker WordBreadkSolrSpellChecker DirectSolrSpellChecker See More

Top Pro

Decision tree faceting

Solr has a faceting feature called pivot facets or 'decision tree facets'. Pivot facets enable you to calculate facets inside a parents facet, for example pivoting on 'size' than 'color' returns 'color' facet counts for each 'size' facet See More

Top Pro

Open source

See All

score 6 · Answer 8

Analogue ORM

score 8 · Answer 9

Cycle ORM

OptimisticNebethetepet's Experience

Data Mapper ORM with automatic migration generation. See More

score 5 · Answer 10

Paris Orm

Top Pro

Stable

As the code hasn't been drastically changed in the past few years, there is no further learning required once its been learned once. See More

PrudentMinthe's Experience

No PHP 7.4+ support ... codebase is outdated and project development freezed as of beong feature complete. PRs not being merged See More

Top Pro

Simple

Paris (and idiorm) is designed to be helpful on the simple tasks that would require a lot of code, then to get out of the way for complex tasks. See More

Top Pro

Well documented

For such a simple ORM, its well documented. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Only 2 files to load. See More

Top Pro

Small

Paris Orm is a single file that sits on top of Idiorm which is also a single file. See More

Top Pro

Framework Agnostic

Because of the small size, it can be attached to any framework or used by itself. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 11

RedBeanPHP4

Top Con

Version 4+ seems to have performance issues

https://github.com/gabordemooij/redbean/issues/811 See More

BrilliantVucubCaquix's Experience

this library is only useful for small projects that do not yet have define a bd , to define the bd according to the restrictions of this library,that way the CRUD operations will work and maybe the triggers will work too! See More

Top Con

Also does not support sql_mode in mysql

Top Con

This library is only useful for small projects that do not yet have define a bd

to define the bd according to the restrictions of this library, that way the CRUD operations will work and maybe the triggers will work too. See More

Top Con

The documentation is not fully organized, and has few examples and does not cover all aspects of ORM

Top Con

It's difficult to use on a bd that does not respect the rules of naming columns and tables

Top Con

Requires all tables to have a primary key, with column name ID

Top Con

Has strict naming rules for the tables and columns

See All

score 6 · Answer 12

Nette Database 3.0

score 1 · Answer 13

Cycle Torch Shark 500

FantasticCatequil's Experience

wrong section See More

Specs

Weight:3.5 oz

Dimensions:5.3" x 1.8" x 1.7"

Charge time:4 hours

Run time:1.5 hrs on the highest setting; 15 hrs on flash;

See All Specs

score 2 · Answer 14

Lean Mapper

Top Pro

Powerful and versatile ORM

SpiritedPotrympus's Experience

It's best ORM I have use. Easy to learn, very powerfull and stable. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Top Pro

Good & constant support

Top Pro

Stable

As the code hasn't been drastically changed in the past few years, there is no further learning required once its been learned once. See More

Top Pro

Smart relationship loading

Top Pro

Support for a large number of databases

Since it uses Dibi, it supports all Dibi enabled databases, with MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL and more included. See More

Top Pro

Framework Agnostic

Top Pro

Friendly community

See All

score 3 · Answer 15

Nextras Orm

Top Pro

Collections for both in-mermory and database storage

Top Pro

Smart relationship loading

score 13 · Answer 16

16 Options Considered

My Recommendation for RedBeanPHP

My Recommendation for RedBeanPHP

Zero configuration

Not suitable for existing projects with a custom database

Great for rapid development/prototyping

Doesn't empty the legacy ORM columns from the table, like user and instead only adds user_id to it

SQL extensions

CLI applications can be written in no time

My Recommendation for Doctrine ORM

My Recommendation for Doctrine ORM

Should feel familiar to Java developers

Not so easy to setup

Easy to find support

Requires learning a new query language

Good, constant support

May be overkill for small projects

Provides a flexible alternative to SQL

No persistent db connections

My Recommendation for Eloquent ORM

My Recommendation for Eloquent ORM

Large community

Too much magic methods

Good documentation

Low performance

Fast learning curve

No own datamapping

My Recommendation for Medoo

My Recommendation for Medoo

Easy to understand

Very lightweight

My Recommendation for Propel

My Recommendation for Propel

Powerful and versatile ORM

Backward compatibiliy breaks

Support for a large number of databases

Simple to learn

My Recommendation for Nette

My Recommendation for Nette

Open source

Built around good programming practices

My Recommendation for Sheep Orm

My Recommendation for Sheep Orm

My Recommendation for Solr

My Recommendation for Solr

SpellChecker

Decision tree faceting

Open source

My Recommendation for Analogue ORM

My Recommendation for Analogue ORM

My Recommendation for Cycle ORM

My Recommendation for Cycle ORM

My Recommendation for Paris Orm

My Recommendation for Paris Orm

Stable

Simple

Well documented

Fast

Small

Framework Agnostic

My Recommendation for RedBeanPHP4

My Recommendation for RedBeanPHP4

Version 4+ seems to have performance issues

Also does not support sql_mode in mysql

This library is only useful for small projects that do not yet have define a bd

The documentation is not fully organized, and has few examples and does not cover all aspects of ORM

It's difficult to use on a bd that does not respect the rules of naming columns and tables

Requires all tables to have a primary key, with column name ID

Has strict naming rules for the tables and columns

My Recommendation for Nette Database 3.0

My Recommendation for Nette Database 3.0

My Recommendation for Cycle Torch Shark 500

My Recommendation for Cycle Torch Shark 500

My Recommendation for Lean Mapper

My Recommendation for Lean Mapper

Powerful and versatile ORM

Open source

Good & constant support

Stable

Smart relationship loading