views:

1390

answers:

8

Which providers are there and your experience using them

I would like to know about all possible native .net Framework Entity Framework providers that are out there as well as their limitations compared to the default Linq2Entities (from MS for MS SQL). If there are more for the same database even better. Tell me and I'll be updating this post with this list.

Feel free to add additional providers directly into this post or provide an answer and others (including me) will add it to the list.

Entity Framework 1

Microsoft SQL Server Standard/Enterprise/Express

Microsoft SQL Server CE (Compact Edition)

  • Any provider?

MySQL

  • MySQL Connector (since version 6.0) - I've read about issues when using Skip(), Take() and Sort() in the same expression tree - everyone welcome to input their experience/knowledge regarding this. (NOTE: MySQL Connector/NET Visual Studio Integration is not supported in the Express Editions of Visual Studio, meaning you won't be able to view MySQL databases in the Database explorer window or add a MySQL data source via Visual Studio wizard dialog boxes. Some users may find that this limits their ability to use Entity Framework and MySQL within Visual Studio Express).
  • Devart dotConnect for MySQL - similar issues to MySql's connector as I've read and both try to blame MS for it [these issues are supposed to be solved]

SQLite

PostgreSQL

Oracle

DB2

Sybase

Informix

Firebird

Provider Wrappers

Entity Framework 4 (beta)

Microsoft SQL Server

  • Microsoft's Linq to Entities 4 - shipped with .net 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010; so far the only provider for EF4

MySQL

SQLite

PostgreSQL

Oracle

A: 

I will start off by apologizing if this content is terribly out of date, but I once wrote a guide to choosing an OR Mapper for .NET. It might at least help you add to your list:

http://howtoselectguides.com/dotnet/ormapping/1st

jamauss
+1  A: 

IBM's Data Server Provider for .NET allows Informix to work with EF. See here: link text

Joel
+1  A: 

IBM's Data Server Provider contains some limitations that make it irritating and fragile for more complex query scenarios. Also, EDMX designer doesn't work with Informix tables prefixed with "informix.*". See Here: link text

Joel
+1  A: 

You're missing System.Data.SQLite for SQLite. It's open source, and quite reliable from my experience. As far as I know it was one of the first EF providers for databases other than SQL Server

Thomas Levesque
+2  A: 

The "Skip/Take and ordering" problems were fixed several months ago in the Devart provider.

Some notes about the EF4 support
At the moment we provide support for Visual Studio Beta 1 and EF4 Beta 1. We plan to release the build with EF4 support in the end of December - beginning of January. We cannot call our Entity Framework support an ideal one - this ORM was initially designed for MS SQL Server, so the possibility to take into account the marvels of other DBMSs is significantly limited.

There is a number of problems the one who implements an EF provider is simply unable to work around. Some examples are available here. The main problem is associated with the CROSS APLY and OUTER APPLY statements generated by EF runtime in some cases. Other DBMSs do not provide this statement, so the problem arises with translation. One also should realize that in case of legacy databases EF is generally unappliable.

We take into account the users that are not satisfied with the default Microsoft designer and ship Entity Developer - a powerful design time tool - with our products.

Devart
Does your provider work correctly with function imports (stored procedure) that accept parameters? because I was having problems with MySql's connector.
Robert Koritnik
We don't have any open requests considering parameterized function imports at the moment. But you can check that dotConnect for MySQL fulfils your requirements, just download the trial from our site. One more thing actual for EF v1 - we provide support not only for function imports, but also for procedures that do not return any result sets. It was achieved due to specific code generation and Entity Developer tool.
Devart
+2  A: 

DB2 will work, but if you want to use some of the out-of-the-box .NET features that we all take for granted (think membership and role providers), you will have quite a bit of work on your hands. DB2 doesn't really do well with Stored Procedures, so you are also looking at a lot of parameterized inline SQL.

I also had some performance issues with the provider from IBM. There is another provider available from a company called DataDirect. It looks to be more performant, but it will cost you. For something like an external facing website, where speed is important, the cost probably will not be an issue.

I am sure that DB2 is a great system if you are building on another platform, but it wasn’t really designed to play nice with .NET. Unless you are already married to DB2, I would look elsewhere.

RepDetec
+1  A: 

I don't think DB2 works with EF 4 yet. If it does, someone please correct me and tell me how its done. I cannot get the DB2 providers to show up in the Data Source dialogs.

camainc
Upper list doesn't state DB2 support for EF4 anyway.
Robert Koritnik
A: 

Entity Framework Sample Provider, Click

renjucool