Why I Stopped Using ORMs in Production
After three years of fighting N+1 queries, opaque migration failures, and ORM-specific gotchas, I went back to raw SQL. Here's what changed — and what I learned about the abstraction trap.
Why I Stopped Using ORMs in Production
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The Problem
ORMs promise to abstract away database complexity. In practice, they add a new layer of complexity on top of an already-complex system.
What I Found
After profiling a Go service that was inexplicably slow, I found the ORM was generating 47 queries for a request that needed 2.
The Solution
Raw SQL with sqlx. It's more verbose but the queries are yours — you understand them, you can optimize them, and they don't surprise you at 3am.
When ORMs Make Sense
For rapid prototyping, Django-style admin panels, and simple CRUD apps, ORMs are fine. Production systems with complex queries? Think twice.