SQLAlchemy is far superior to ActiveRecord if you already know SQL and write fairly complex queries. Once you get past a certain point, figuring out how to write or optimize a query in AR (or, to be fair, most other ORMs) tends to involve hunting down some obscure Rails-specific incantations, whereas SA maps pretty nicely onto SQL and doesn't try to offer as high of a level of abstraction. I've also found that it's easier to shoot yourself in the foot with ActiveRecord, performance-wise (though this has gotten much better over time).

The downside of SQLAlchemy is that it's less pleasant to use for simpler queries/tasks, so which ORM is better depends on the project. I've worked on codebases that never crossed that threshold, and ActiveRecord gave a consistently great developer experience. YMMV.

Is SQLAlchemy about equivalent to Arel in Ruby, then?

ARel is very roughly equivalent to SQLAlchemy Core[0], though I'd expect less complete and polished but I really don't know much of ARel.

[0] https://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/13/core/tutorial.html

In fairness I haven't used ActiveRecord in a few years, but I really love the Sequel ORM for ruby over my previous experience with ActiveRecord. I feel like ActiveRecord can be a bit too magic for some of the more complicated things I have to do with my models.

+1 for Sequel. I've decided to try Sequel instead of AR for new project 3 years ago. Never looked back, feels like a breath of fresh air. Hope it will gain more recognition in the Ruby community.

I used to hold this opinion until I started using elixir's ecto library. However, I still do hold ActiveRecord in high regard.

I love ecto as well. I love pure SQL and interfacing closer to raw data. Phoenix/Ecto is where I'd gravitate starting a new project (we used it in production at our startup) for many reasons including the simplicity of deployments.

For people getting started with engineering, AR is a nice wrapping/mapping of SQL => object oriented models. There's a mix of productivity, approachability, and feature set that puts AR ahead, for me, as a general use ORM.

I would agree, though, with a strong and experienced engineering team Ecto and Elixir are quite nice.

If nothing else ecto doesn't autopluralize. I suppose I have a small mind, but that always got under my skin.

I've never found it hard to do anything with sqlalchemy and we write some pretty complex queries. Do you have any examples?

It's been a few years since I've been involved in Ruby and Rails, but back then, there was a lot of controvery over AR. Not because of the quality, which has generally been excellent, but over the pattern itself; see the pushback against "fat models" and towards "service objects" for this kind of debate.

> ActiveRecord is the best ORM I've ever used, in any language, and I don't know of an engineer I've worked with who disagrees

Maybe it's morphed into a more general ORM in the 10+ years since I've touched it, but the active record pattern breaks down very quickly once you get beyond basic CRUD apps.