Any good ORM tools for Android development? [closed]

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Closed 12 years ago.

Anyone working on the Android ('gPhone') have or know of a place where I can find a good ORM tool for it? The code is written in Java, and the database is SQLite. What I would like to find is a tool that given the object definition, can auto-generate the tables and the CRUD functions (that would be awesome), or, barring that, a tool that can take the table definition, the object definition, and auto-generate the CRUD functionality. The rub is that all of this must happen within the Android framework, which has its own conventions as to how database access works.

• mparaz: I don't think there are any available now.
• NeuraCache: its 2014. I thought I will mention Sprinkles (github.com/emilsjolander/sprinkles) since no one has mentioned it.. 500 stars on github, on meaven central, content observers, worth checking
• Damodar Periwal: It's 2015. Software Tree has recently released JDXA, a simple yet powerful, and flexible ORM for Android. Supports inheritance, one to one, one to many, many to one, and many to many relationships. JDXA's POJO (Plain Old Java Objects) friendly non-intrusive programming model does not require you to change your Java classes in any way: - No need to subclass your domain classes from any base class - No need to clutter your source code with annotations - No need for DAO classes - No source code generation
• Damodar Periwal: Check out this nice tutorial on JDXA ORM .
• RookieGuy: If you prefer plain natural Android code without additional library dependencies take a look at the SQLite peer class code generator example. It is annotation based and supports combined primary keys, combined unique constraints and indexing.

Answer 1

Thought I'd just add my 0ドル.02 here about my ORMLite package.

It is a lightweight replacement to Hibernate and uses native Android OS database calls to support SQLite on Android. It also supports many other database types using JDBC on other architectures. We have an Android mailing list for ORMLite questions.

• ferdystschenko: Does ORMLite have built-in support for (one|many)-to-(many|one) relationships? I can't find much info on that ... If not, are there plans for this?
• Gray: Depends on what you mean by "support". There is some example code on how to use "foreign objects" which are how you to one-to-many and there are examples on how to use join tables to accomplish many-to-many (ormlite.com/docs/examples). Post to the user list with more questions (groups.google.com/group/ormlite-user).
• Gray: Yeah, it is certainly larger than ActiveAndroid. A lot more functionality as well of course. Also freeware as opposed to AA's license. But if size is the goal, ORMLite is not for you.
• Celmaun: @Gray Ironic since it's supposed to be "Lite" :P
• Gray: Indeed @SalmanPK. Although there are varying degrees of lite. :-)

Answer 2

This question cannot age but the suggested frameworks can. So, here is first a list of what I find important in such frameworks for comparison:

• Is there a Maven or Gradle artifact? (that's a big plus depending on whether you use maven or gradle, obviously)
• Is the code accessible in an easy way including a fast overview on commits to judge the activity? (code hosted on github is a definite plus for me, in that matter)
• Release management: are there releases/release tags and artifacts for it? (there are some that are hosted on github and require either git clone or offer the master tarball for download - for me a big minus if not even release tags are set and addressed in the README)
• as size matters I put up some hints where it was easy to get by (I did not download anything, so from those projects that offer no release artifacts there are no sizes)

And here is a list of frameworks with notes on the points above. I looked up some more like aBatis and Hadi but I added only those that had some activity after 2011.

• http://ormlite.com, Maven artifact, 52 kB, SVN, the website is... difficult but there seem to be a lot of examples, according to http://ormlite.com/changelog.txt the last version is 4.48 from 2013, https://github.com/j256/ormlite-core (release tags), last activity March 2015
• http://greendao-orm.com, good maintenance, Maven artifact, focus: fast performance, small size, little RAM consumption. Github: https://github.com/greenrobot/greenDAO/ (release tags,> 2300 stars), last activity November 2014
• https://github.com/roscopeco/ormdroid, small size, last activity August 2014
• http://www.activeandroid.com, https://github.com/pardom/ActiveAndroid (> 2300 stars), good maintenance, community, no release tags (download points to master tarball), Maven artifact, last activity October 2014
• http://droidparts.org, https://github.com/yanchenko/droidparts (release tags,> 600 stars), also dependency injection, Maven artifact, actively maintained
• http://www.androrm.com , https://github.com/androrm/androrm (release tags), last activity Jan 02, 2014 (github)
• https://github.com/emilsjolander/sprinkles (release tags,> 600 stars), last activity May 2014, Maven artifact (thanks @AndroidGecko)
• http://realm.io, https://github.com/realm/realm-java replaces not only ORM but also SQLite, also for iOS (release tags,> 1600 stars), actively maintained, own Maven repository

I have not tried any of those but maybe I can spare current readers a bit of time by listing the nowadays active projects. Please add a comment if you know of other projects that satisfy some of the above points and have some serious development (over some time) going on.

EDIT (2013 Nov): updated the list to the current status of the projects. Some of these have added release tags to their github repos as well as Maven/Gradle support. Good work!

EDIT (2015 Apr): updated the list, added Sprinkles (as per comment by @AndroidGecko) and Realm.io.

• Crono: I strongly recommend to use Realm, it´s really fast and fluid to work!

Answer 3

If performance and code size matter, check out greenDAO. I'm the author of it, and my motivation to create another ORM was to avoid reflection in the hotspots. It turned out that greenDAO can be up to 4 times faster than ORMLite. Checkout the feature page for details.

• Chris.Jenkins: Looks quite good, but having to generate the Dao's is a turnoff for me :(
• Markus Junginger: Yes, generating code is an additional step for developers, but it saves you a great deal of performance in the app. Both bootstrapping and parsing database results are significantly faster. Other tools rely on reflection, which is cruelly slow in Android.
• mabac: I'm using greenDao in my projects, and I'm very pleased with it.
• StErMi: @greenrobot do you have some showcases of "big apps" using your lib?
• Markus Junginger: @StErMi Path is using greenDAO. They have >1 M installs. See github.com/greenrobot/greenDAO/issues/20#issuecomment-13278922

Answer 4

I don't know of anything that is exactly what you are asking for, but there is an alternative to SQLite that you may find useful if your architecture requirements are flexible. It may be worth checking out db4o:

• Android db4o
• Code comparison examples

• Ben: i had good results with DB40... wanna checkout Active Android though...
• slf: activeandroid.com looks cool, I'm looking forward to giving it a spin

Answer 5

ActiveAndroid (削除) (20ドル) (削除ここまで) looks like it may be exactly what you need.

• Bill the Lizard: I know you're not trying anything shifty here, but can you please disclose your affiliation in your posts when you mention one of your own products on SO? I know your name is in the footer of the linked page, but we're trying to crack down on astroturfing (which this is not), so we're asking everyone to follow the same disclosure guidelines. Thanks.
• gak: Just a heads up, ActiveAndroid is not free.
• Michael Pardo: ActiveAndroid is now free and open-source - pardom.github.com/ActiveAndroid

Answer 6

I liked ActiveAndroid. It's written specifically for Android it seems. That's feels like a plus to me.

I have some Ruby on Rails experience and if you like the Rails way of ActiveRecord you can very quickly get moving with this library.

https://www.activeandroid.com/

• endryha: Nice framework, but it conflicts with org.codehous.jackson library, so if you use it in your project you wil be unable to use ActveAndroid
• Michael Pardo: How does it conflict? Did you report it as a bug in tracker.activeandroid.com?
• philgiese: Maybe have a look at androrm.the-pixelpla.net it has most of the features and i would say even some more. Plus: it is free and open source.

Answer 7

https://github.com/ahmetalpbalkan/orman

Orman framework might help you. It is especially designed for that and very small and useful.

Answer 8

I'm also looking for an ORM on Android. I tested ActiveAndroid, NeoDatis and db4o, and I think that I'll use one of the two last.

NeoDatis and db4o are really similar, so I would like some advice to choose the best one. Is someone using one of them on his project ? I'll use it for free and paid app, but it seems that the two haven't any license limitation for Android.

There is a benchmark here that seems to say that NeoDatis is faster than db4o, but I don't know if we can base my opinion on this.

• Bostone: Db40 and NeoDatis are object databases, just size of these is totally prohibitive to be of any use on Android
• Sergio: @ DroidIn.net could you provide a link that sustains your comment ?

Answer 9

One more newcomer: android-active-record. It's very lightweight and easy for use persistence framework for Android backed by SQLite http://code.google.com/p/android-active-record/

• GWLlosa: Looks like its still in early development, but worth keeping an eye on!
• Bostone: Tried it - it's nice beginning but needs a lot of work to be ready for the prime time

Answer 10

ActiveRecordJS from Aptana is a Javascript ORM that should run on the gPhone. It is designed to work with Jaxer and Gears. When you user the Jaxer Adapters, you can connect to SQLLite.

UPDATE: I don't think I made it clear, but ActiveRecordJS is an ORM that runs client side, which could be an advantage to you on the gPhone.

• GWLlosa: In Java code? Or in JavaScript code?
• Brian Lacy: I'm pretty sure what you're talking about is a Javascript solution intended purely for browser-based (Web) applications. I don't see how it relates to native app development for Android.

Answer 11

http://hadi.sourceforge.net

This tool is very simple and easy to use.

Answer 12

I have developed my own implementation of the JPA ORM for Android. It is not yet fully feature complete, but you can annotate class with the @Entity, @Id, @Column annotations and you get JPA entities that can be stored and retrieved from the SQLite database. It needs some more features & cleanup before I'll post it to the public, but if there is enough interest it might accelerate my effort.

• MartinGrotzke: Sounds interesting, do you have already s.th. to have a look at / to try? Cheers, Martin
• Spidey: More than a year later, how is the progress on this? JPA + Annotations on Android sounds GREAT!

Answer 13

Even though this is an old post, the topic is still relevant. Hence, I want to share an interesting article and nice approach to solving most of the issues mentioned in the question:

http://blog.codecentric.de/en/2011/04/android-persistence-accelerated-small-inhouse-orm/

Hope anyone finds this as useful as myself!

Answer 14

My own DroidParts /http://droidparts.org/ just reached v0.5. It's a DI/ORM library & more.
Not much documentation, but includes a sample app.

• C--: May be adding proper documentation is a good idea.

Answer 15

Had negative experience with db4o (v. 8): indexing didn't work properly (exception etc.). So I didn't managed how to avoid creating duplicates in foreign tables when having object in object structure. More detailed explanation in my question. Hope one day it would be better.