PostgreSQL in C# .NET with Npgsql, Dapper, and Entity Framework: The complete guide

One of the most used databases these days is PostgreSQL (aka Postgres). Its accomplishments include being the most popular DB [among professional developers] according to Stack Overflow survey of 2022, the database in all of the fastest TechEmpower benchmarks, and being the most advanced open source database (self-proclaimed). We’ll talk...

Global query filters in EF Core

Say goodbye to the hassle of having to manually set a default filter for every query EF Core provides a useful feature called Global Query Filters. It enables you to apply a filter to all queries sent to the database. Two examples of how this feature can be practically used...

ORM wars: Dapper vs EF Core

Dapper and EF Core are popular .NET libraries for data access and management. Both have strengths and weaknesses, and the choice will depend on the project's specific requirements. In this article, we'll compare Dapper and EF Core in terms of their architecture, performance, and features. Architecture Dapper is a simple...

Performance benchmarks of PostgreSQL .NET with Npgsql, Dapper, and Entity Framework Core

In a previous blog post, I showed you how to use PostgreSQL in C# with Npgsql, Dapper, and Entity Framework Core. But if you’re going to use one of them, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you’re not choosing a library that has really bad performance. Or at...

Dapper is a lightweight ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) framework for .NET Core and is commonly used to query databases in .NET Core applications. Here are some of the advanced features of Dapper in .NET Core: Multi-Mapping: Dapper allows you to map multiple database tables to a single class. This is...

Writing unit test code when using the Dapper ORM tool for database operations with ASP.NET Core Web Application How to write unit tests with Dapper Writing unit tests when using the Dapper ORM tool for database operations in an ASP.NET Core Web Application can be complex. This is because Dapper...

Database Setup with DbUp + Postgresql + Dapper in ASP.Net Core In this tutorial, we are going to explore how we can setup our database on startup when using Dapper for accessing database. When using Dapper, one of the key learning I came to know is that we have...

Entity Framework Core is recommended and the most popular tool for interacting with relational databases on ASP NET Core. It is powerful enough to cover most possible scenarios, but like any other tool, it has its limitations. Long time people said (not without reason) that Entity Frmaework does not...

I've recently gotten into using Docker in my development cycle and I'm really enjoying how much of a wonderful tool it is. One thing that always used to be a pain was setting up a development server to run SQL Server. Now with Docker, I can just spin up...

We have an upcoming project in my group that is going to need to be very, very performant. This project will involve us querying for data from a SQL database, transforming that data into strongly-typed objects, then returning those objects to the calling system through a service layer. Eventually,...

In this article, we will learn about Using Entity Framework Core and Dapper in ASP.NET Core together in the same application. Another major point of discussion will be Transactions. By the end of the article, we will have an application that works with both Entity Framework Core and Dapper...

ORM: Object Relationship Mapper that maps your database directly with C# objects. There are many ORM tools available. One of them is Dapper. Dapper is known as the king of ORM. The following are the key features of Dapper: Speed and fast in performance. Fewer lines of code. Object Mapper....

There's no doubt that Entity Framework with LINQ is great (I've certainly written enough articles about it). But Entity Framework comes at a cost. As Matthew Jones points out on his blog, using LINQ+Entity Framework adds time to each data retrieval compared to using ADO.NET's SqlDataAdapter. The cost is...