Best free ORM tools to use with .NET 2.0/3.5 [closed]

Solution 1:

SubSonic is not as extensive as nHibernate; rather, it is a straight forward Active Record 1 class per table Data Access Layer.

Some of the features are a query tool, ability to execute stored procedures and a scaffolding app in ASP.net. You can be up and running within 30 minutes or less, with a tiny learning curve and minimal configuration in the Config.app file.

Solution 2:

I always recommend Castle ActiveRecord. It's a layer on top of NHibernate. It works great in both environments you've mentioned.

Solution 3:

nHibernate works for me, but it all depends on what you are after. A lot of people don't want to go down the full DDD and unit testing route. They just want something simple to map their database to objects to make the code a bit nicer. If thats the case then look at Subsonic as well as it is possibly easier to get started.

Solution 4:

I favour Fluent NHibernate, which lets you create mappings in strongly-types C#, rather than using the normal NHibernate XML files. It lets you mix and match too (you can have mappings in code and in XML).

There's a nice getting started article here.