ADO.NET vs Entity Framework. Which is the best framework?

namespace TestApplicationADONET
{
   public class UserRepository
   {
        public DataSet GetAllUsersList()
        {
           // Initializes disconnected dataset to fetch results
            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            try
            {
                //Create and initialize the connection using connection string
                using (SqlConnection sqlConn = 
                            SqlConnection ("DataSource=localhost;Initial Catalog=TestDB; 
                                            User ID=sa;Password=admin;"))
                {
                    //Open connection
                    sqlConn.Open();
                    // Write sql command to access user from table
                    string sql = "select * from tblusers";
                    SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sql, sqlConn); 
                    // Define Command Type
                    sqlCmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
                    // Execute the command
                    SqlDataAdapter sqlAdapter = new SqlDataAdapter(sqlCmd);
                    //Get the data in disconnected mode
                    sqlAdapter.Fill(ds);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // Log exception in log file or in database
            }
            // return dataset result
            return ds;
        }
    }
}

 What is Entity Framework?

Microsoft introduced Entity Framework in .NET Framework 3.5 in 2008, to enable developers to focus on business domain objects instead of working with underlying database stored data, and it eliminates the need of writing code for writing and reading data from data sources.

Entity Framework is an open-source Object Relational Mapper (ORM) for .NET applications provided by Microsoft. ORM is used to map objects to relational databases. Entity Framework is built at the top of an ADO.NET and generates the necessary code automatically for storing, and retrieving data from the database, hence, developer only need to focus on creating the application, not dealing with databases and its problems.

You can make an application in an Entity Framework with minimal knowledge of database, because the framework is doing most of the operations and commands, and it is easy to implement CRUD operations in it. Therefore, it reduces the overall development time, and you can easily focus on the production instead of the databases. It helps in eliminating the redundant tasks of developers by reducing the code for managing database queries.

Entity Framework Architecture 

Entity Framework consists of the following three layers:

Object Service 

Object Service is the top layer in the Entity Framework architecture also called as ORM layer. It maintains the session between an application and database. The main purpose of this layer is to perform CRUD operations like save, delete, select, etc., with the help of queries. It represents the model entities of an application. It allows to use advanced functionality like mapping of a primary key, enumerable and many more.

Entity Client 

Entity Client is the core layer in Entity Framework, which connects the data source layer to the Object Service layer with the help of providers. It allows developers to write LINQ queries and read or write data without generating classes of conceptual schema. It has different layers such as Storage Layer, Entity Layer, Mapping Layer and Metadata Services.

Data Providers

Data Provider layer is directly linked to the database. It is responsible to parse the query into a native SQL command expression in the database and then provide results back into domain objects of application. 

You can insert a new user into data source by using an Entity Framework Code-First approach in the following example:

namespace TestApplicationEF
{
    public class UserRepository
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        { 
           // Initializes the dbContext class User Entity
            using (var userContextDB = new UserContext())
            {
                // Create a new user object
                var user = new User() { UserID = "USER-01" };
       
                // Call Add Command 
                userContextDB.User.Add(user);

                // Execute the save command to make changes 
                userContextDB.SaveChanges();                
            }
        }
    }
}

Performance

ADO.NET provides better performance as it is directly connected to the data source and handles raw SQL connections and SQL queries between the application and the database, which makes the processing faster than Entity Framework does. Entity Framework is a high-level framework that focus on speeding up the development by doing less coding. It translates LINQ queries to SQL first with ADO.NET and then execute the queries.

Speed of Development

ADO.NET gives you complete control over data layer, that the developer needs to make classes and methods from scratch to allow communication between application and database. This requires more effort and time to build a complete structure of data access layer. Whereas, Entity Framework generates models and database context classes automatically to handle database operations and thus required less effort and time. 

Maintainable Code

In ADO.NET, debugging is cumbersome as you go from application layer to the database layer one by one to find what is happening in an application whereas, Entity Framework gives clearly modeled relationships of entities and dependent tiers.

Flexibility

ADO.NET provides great flexibility in terms of raw SQL queries and procedures than Entity Framework by providing full control over a database. 

Overall – Final Thoughts

Take the right path before you start. If you want to have more control over SQL commands and operations, then ADO.NET is a great framework to work with. It allows you to access database layer through libraries and can handle complicated operations also.  Entity Framework is an ORM framework which aims at increasing the productivity of developers by eliminating the redundancy work of database operations. It is powerful enough to handle database services by automating the mechanism of generating code of basic SQL queries. Entity Framework is built on top of the ADO.NET framework, therefore, it cannot be faster than it, but it does provide an option of quick development and improves the maintainability of the code. You can have both approaches in a single project, i.e., Entity Framework for CRUD operations and ADO.NET for reporting purpose and bulk data SQL operations.