> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.arkannis.net/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.arkannis.net/programming/python/frameworks/sqlalchemy/what-is-an-orm.md).

# What is an ORM

* A layer of abstraction that sits between the database and us
* We can perform all database operations though traditional Python code
* No longer requires SQL

![](/files/2gAEfmEgwjIoUjBRo1qe)

### What do ORMs do?

* Instead of manually defining tables in Postgres, we can define our table as python models

![](/files/bE938b0nOuzRpobjTmZH)

* Queries can be made exclusively through python code
* No SQL is necessary

![](/files/LSV36hWUvP4we0qmbcSp)

### SQLAlchemy

[Official Documentation](https://www.sqlalchemy.org/)

[FastAPI ORM Setup Documentation](https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/tutorial/sql-databases/?h=)

* Is one of the most popular python ORMs
* Is a standalone library and has no association with FastAPI
* It can be used with any other python web framework or any python based application