What are the advantages over Entity Framework 4?

[Jim]

Last spring, I evaluated OpenAccess ORM for a project I was starting, primarily because I want to be able to make changes in the Microsoft SQL database schema and have them easily carried over to the model.

At the time, I rejected ORM primarily because I encountered so many bugs, but now that ORM has had some time to mature, I'm thinking about converting from Entity Framework 4 to ORM, hoping to get more flexibility to make schema changes as the project progresses.

Does anyone have advice for me?  Specifically:

1. Is it really easier to make schema changes with ORM than with EF?  I have each EF model class in a separate file, and it's easier to make changes than I expected, but still has a lot of room for improvement,  Also, I remember that ORM didn't seem all that good in propagating changes at the time I evaluated it..
2. Is ORM stable now?
3. Are there other factors I should consider, favoring either ORM or EF?

Thanks for the help!

[Serge]

Hi James,

 First of all we now support full round trip mapping and by this I mean you can do changes in the database and update the OpenAccess model based on that or do the exact opposite. You can modify the classes provided in the diagram and generate a migration sql script that would update your schema to match your model. (You can have a look at one of the help articles about our Update Database From Model wizard)
 
And while OpenAccess is in constant development, we are happy with the improvements we have made to make it stable. We have had quite some time to work on this and there was also some very valuable feedback from our customers that has aided us greatly in making OpenAccess better. We are constantly striving to meet the needs of our customers. 

A major feature Entity Framework are lacking is support for, as we refer to them, artificial types and fields. There are types and fields that can be created during runtime, the schema can also be changed during runtime in order to account for them. They are more or less dynamic and in certain situations can be of great help.

You can also have a look at this feature map of OpenAccess and EntityFramework and see some benchmarks on ormbattle.com.

And we should also not forget the support. We will always respond in a timely fashion to support tickets and help you get the most of OpenAccess.

If you find you need info on any topic or feature of OpenAccess please let us know, we will be more than happy to accommodate you and provide detailed information.

Best wishes,
Serge
the Telerik team