ormDB + SQLAlchemy

What This Adapter Does

ormDB is a relational database engine written in Rust that replaces PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite as the actual database underneath your application. The ormdb[sqlalchemy] package connects SQLAlchemy’s ORM layer to ormDB, so your mapped classes, relationships, and session-based workflows continue to work while the database resolves object graphs natively.

SQLAlchemy’s relationship() declarations describe how your Python objects relate to each other. With a SQL database, loading related objects triggers additional queries or complex JOINs depending on your loading strategy. ormDB receives the relationship graph as a native graph-fetch request and returns the complete object tree in a single round-trip, regardless of depth, eliminating N+1 queries.

Quick Setup

Install the adapter:

pip install ormdb[sqlalchemy]

Configure the engine:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
from sqlalchemy.orm import Session

engine = create_engine("ormdb://localhost:5555/mydb")

Your existing mapped classes and queries work unchanged:

from sqlalchemy.orm import DeclarativeBase, Mapped, mapped_column, relationship

class Base(DeclarativeBase):
    pass

class User(Base):
    __tablename__ = "users"
    id: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(primary_key=True)
    name: Mapped[str]
    posts: Mapped[list["Post"]] = relationship(back_populates="author")

class Post(Base):
    __tablename__ = "posts"
    id: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(primary_key=True)
    title: Mapped[str]
    author_id: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(ForeignKey("users.id"))
    author: Mapped["User"] = relationship(back_populates="posts")
    comments: Mapped[list["Comment"]] = relationship()

# Single round-trip graph fetch
with Session(engine) as session:
    users = session.query(User).options(
        joinedload(User.posts).joinedload(Post.comments)
    ).all()

What Changes, What Stays the Same

Stays the same: Mapped classes, relationship() declarations, Session operations, query() and select() patterns, loading strategies (joinedload, subqueryload, selectinload), and transaction management.

Changes: The database engine. All loading strategies become single-round-trip graph fetches. Migrations gain A-D safety grading via Alembic integration. Vector search, geo search, full-text search, and change streams are available natively. SQLAlchemy with ormDB is ideal for Python/Django projects.

Removed: Raw SQL via text(), session.execute("SELECT ..."), and SQLAlchemy Core table expressions. All queries must use the ORM layer. See how ormDB compares to PostgreSQL, the database SQLAlchemy most commonly connects to.