# EF Core

11 Hacker News commenters recommended EF Core and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as one of the best ORMs, with batteries included and performance now comparable to Dapper, and it reduces the need for manual transaction management.

## Why people recommend it

- Considered one of the best ORMs (4 comments): "EF Core is truly one of the best ORMs I've ever used." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45904345)) "Hands down the best ORM. Others don't come close." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982742)) "EF Core being possibly the best ORM out there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690064))
- Hard to give up once used (3 comments): "having used EfCore/Linq a while I'd be hard pressed to like going back though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232538)) "EF Core come batteries included and is so much better, it isn't fun anymore." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46034082)) "EF Core itself is worth the price of admission, IMO." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45899246))
- Lets AI agents follow established patterns (2 comments): "which allow my agent to easily follow decades of best practiced patterns" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50139799)) "allow my agent to easily follow decades of best practiced patterns" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50139043))

## 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
- [Dapper](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dapper.md): 19 recommend
- [Oxyde ORM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oxyde.md): 18 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "EF Core", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ef-core/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).