6 Pros and Cons of Entity Framework

The essence of Entity Framework is that it is a set of technologies that can support the development of data-oriented software applications. This is an open-source object-relational mapping (ORM) framework in ADO.NET. It is part of the .NET Framework.

In October 2013, the version 6 of the Entity Framework was released under license from Apache License v2. Despite the developments being made, there were many issues associated with this software. In June 2016, Microsoft rewrote Entity Framework and called it Entity Framework Core 1.0, which is also licensed under Apache License v2.  In September 2019, Microsoft released the newest version, which is EF Core 3.0. Here are the pros and cons of Entity Framework to better understand the issues commonly found with this software.

List of Pros of Entity Framework

1. Reduces Development Time.
Since Entity Framework enable developers to work with the data in the form of domain-specific objects and properties without dealing with the data engines used to store the data, software applications can be created in less time.

2. Reduces Development Cost.
Closely related to reducing development time (above), applications are less expensive to develop because the architects of data-oriented applications spend less manhours building the applications.

3. Provides a Common Syntax.
It provides unique syntax (LINQ/Yoda) for all object queries, both inside and outside of the database.

List of Cons of Entity Framework

1. Lack of Certain Functionality.
Users report that it does not perform well when working with large domain models.  Another issue is poorly written SQL queries that are slow running and need reworking as a SP or View. Also, some say that there are issues with computed values or values that are added in an Insert Trigger being left out of the model after a new record is added.

2. Includes Extra Data.
When using class models, some people say that Entity Framework includes additional unnecessary data which makes the class sizes bigger.

3. Data Migrations Break Easily.
The data migration functionality is weak, and so, in practice, it just doesn’t work well enough.

The pros/cons presented here are not all inclusive, and may or may not be issues depending on what you are trying to do.  Users seems to agree that it is a wonderful prototyping tool when your dataset is small.  Once it is bigger and more customization is desired, there seem to be more issues with the technology to consider in determining if it is the right tool for you.