That's not really the point of ORMs though. It's map your data objects in code to your entitled in your relational database. That it comes with a SQL builder is just a necessity in order for the mapping to be done by the ORM. You can still write raw sql with most ORMs, but then you won't get the mapping which is the point. In some cases you will need to do that and that's fine. Hiding complex SQL isn't the goal