# Dapper

19 Hacker News commenters recommended Dapper and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free .NET micro-ORM that maps hand-written SQL to objects with little fuss, valued for simplicity, few dependencies and speed. Critics find raw SQL and strings burdensome.

## Why people recommend it

- You keep writing your own SQL (5 comments): "Dapper is an unmitigated joy for me. i get to write the best sql needed for the case and then let the micro-orm handle the rest." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359365)) "It does the object mapping, but you still write the queries as SQL." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794472)) "I like data adapters that make writing general SQL queries easier" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577281))
- Simple object mapping from query results (4 comments): "it’s so damn simple to send outrageous queries to the database and have those multiple mixed results turned into objects very simply" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49413171)) "With Dapper it’s particularly neat sometimes because you can just pass an object that you were using anyway" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055133)) "Object mappers are 100% worth the effort and are often faster than hand translating the objects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49145537))
- Few dependencies, easy to debug (3 comments): "There were never [ORM] issues to debug and queries could easily be inspected." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359766)) "when you have 3rd party dependencies you can literally count on one hand" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47292530)) "Dapper remains the only constant 3rd party dependency in my projects." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357046))
- Strongly typed, parameterized queries (2 comments): "It does exactly what I want: provides strongly-typed mapping and protects against SQL injection." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46360035)) "Easy enough with data types for parameterized inputs as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46360273))

## What people warn about

- Raw SQL and strings seen as burdensome (2 comments): "moving away from it as it brings nothing to the table but strings and bunch of SQL" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46055320)) "tore all my Dapper + SQL and repositories out of a big project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46055277))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Entity Framework Core](https://hackerapproved.com/p/entity-framework-core.md): 35 recommend
- [SQLAlchemy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sqlalchemy.md): 33 recommend
- [Drizzle ORM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/drizzle-orm.md): 25 recommend
- [Oxyde ORM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oxyde.md): 18 recommend
- [Django ORM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/django-orm.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Dapper", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dapper/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).