Django ORM
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 11 ORMs by recommenders
Praised for a powerful, extensible query API and pragmatic design; critics say raw performance is not its strength and generated SQL is hard to control.
Praised for a powerful, extensible query API and pragmatic design; critics say raw performance is not its strength and generated SQL is hard to control.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Powerful, extensible query API
“the django ORM is fairly easy to extend, it's not like it was written as one big blob”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Postgres Is Your Friend. ORM Is Not” “the API is actually pretty pragmatic and allows easy extension.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Notes on Starting to Use Django” “a memorable and powerful query API”
Comment from 28 Jun 2026 in “The Unglamorous Side of Rust Web Development” Better than SQLAlchemy for many
“Lol I never knew django orm is faster than SQLAlchemy. But having used both that makes sense.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Oxyde – Pydantic-native async ORM with a Rust core” “I prefer a Django-like ORM to SQLAlchemy”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Blending SQL and Python with Sqlorm” Solid foundation for data layers
“the reality is it's the solid foundation that is the ORM”
Comment from 19 Dec 2025 in “Django 6” “The way you can scaffold an apps data models is amazing.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Django 6” Great at what it does
“it's great at what it does”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Oxyde – Pydantic-native async ORM with a Rust core” “I do enjoy the Django ORM”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard-to-read syntax and lookups
“I find those double underscore kwargs weird too, and would prefer to simply pass a lambda instead.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “What I love about Django” “the syntax is just not nice to read”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “What I love about Django” Generated queries hard to control
“the teams I was on would write queries in SQL and then spend the rest of the day trying to make the ORM reproduce it”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “Removed rust to gain speed” “fixing the queries which usually originate from Django ORM is a bit hit or miss”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Looking Forward to Postgres 19: Query Hints” “These "any db" abstractions just make for the worst query patterns.”
Comment from 22 Dec 2025 in “The Rise of SQL:the second programming language everyone needs to know”
Other ORMs people recommend
The four most recommended other ORMs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entity Framework Core | 35 | 19 | 65% | 12 | — | — |
| SQLAlchemy | 33 | 28 | 54% | 11 | — | — |
| Drizzle ORM | 25 | 6 | 81% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Dapper | 19 | 3 | 86% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Django ORMThis page | 15 | 6 | 71% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
21 of the 22 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the syntax is just not nice to read”
“I find those double underscore kwargs weird too, and would prefer to simply pass a lambda instead.”
“I despise django-orm, doctrine is so much better.”
“I do enjoy the Django ORM”
“a memorable and powerful query API”
“fixing the queries which usually originate from Django ORM is a bit hit or miss”
“it's great at what it does”
“raw performance was never one of Django ORM's selling points”
“Lol I never knew django orm is faster than SQLAlchemy. But having used both that makes sense.”
“the django ORM is fairly easy to extend, it's not like it was written as one big blob”
“the points made in this article are plain false”
“ORM in Django is, in fact, better in all possible ways than an ORM someone at some company just wrote”
“the API is actually pretty pragmatic and allows easy extension.”
“it's not the ORM's fault - it's that of the programmer”
“I use Django daily for 10 years but I don't understand the ORM besides basic CRUD”
“Django ORM lets me combine custom SQL snippets with ORM code.”
“These "any db" abstractions just make for the worst query patterns.”
“the reality is it's the solid foundation that is the ORM”
“the teams I was on would write queries in SQL and then spend the rest of the day trying to make the ORM reproduce it”
“The way you can scaffold an apps data models is amazing.”
“I prefer a Django-like ORM to SQLAlchemy”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.