A comparative study of the features and performance of ORM tools in a .NET environment

Abstract

Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tools are increasingly becoming important in the process of information systems development, but still their level of use is lower than expected, considering all the benefits they offer. In this paper, we have presented comparative analysis of the two most used ORM tools in .NET programming environment. The features, usage and performance of Microsoft Entity Framework and NHibernate were analyzed and compared from a software development point of view. Various query mechanisms were described and tested against conventional SQL query approach as a benchmark. The results of our experiments have shown that the widely accepted opinion that ORM introduces translation overhead to all persistence operations is not correct in the case of modern ORM tools in .NET environment. Therefore, at the end of this paper we have discussed some reasons for insufficiently widespread application of ORM technology. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.