EF Core or Dapper? Two Ways to Talk to a Database from .NET

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Almost every .NET application that stores data ends up choosing how its C# code will talk to a relational database. Two names come up more than any other. Entity Framework Core is Microsoft’s object-relational mapper: you describe your classes, and it writes the SQL, tracks what you change and evolves the schema. Dapper is a small library from Stack Overflow: you write the SQL, and it turns the rows that come back into objects.

EF Core on Artur Rios Lab

EF Core or Dapper? Two Ways to Talk to a Database from .NET