Dapper

Overview

Dapper is a lightweight, high-performance micro-ORM for .NET that extends IDbConnection with methods for executing SQL and mapping results to strongly-typed objects. It does not generate SQL, manage change tracking, or handle migrations -- it maps query results to POCOs with minimal overhead. Dapper is used when you need full control over SQL, maximum query performance, or when working with legacy databases where an ORM's conventions do not fit.

Dapper supports parameterized queries, multi-mapping (joins across tables), multiple result sets, stored procedures, and dynamic parameters. It is the data access layer used by Stack Overflow and is one of the most widely adopted .NET data access libraries.

Install via NuGet: dotnet add package Dapper

Basic Query and Command

using System.Data;
using Dapper;
using Microsoft.Data.SqlClient;