When I originally wrote CouchRest, it was just the "non-magic" parts, and was a clean little library. Then one day I had about 3 hours fun, adding a query generator as an experiment. Next thing you know, that aspect had gained contributors and grown into a full blown ODM. If you just use the basic features, CouchRest should treat you just fine. The only reason you'd use the extended stuff is if you are more comfortable with Active Record style APIs than with HTTP. Turns out that's not a small set of people...