SQL Alchemy

SQL Alchemy is the Python SQL toolkit and Object Relational Mapper that gives application developers the full power and flexibility of SQL.

It provides a full suite of well known enterprise-level persistence patterns, designed for efficient and high-performing database access, adapted into a simple and Pythonic domain language.

SQL databases behave less like object collections the more size and performance start to matter; object collections behave less like tables and rows the more abstraction starts to matter. SQLAlchemy aims to accommodate both of these principles.

SQLAlchemy considers the database to be a relational algebra engine, not just a collection of tables. Rows can be selected from not only tables but also joins and other select statements; any of these units can be composed into a larger structure. SQLAlchemy's expression language builds on this concept from its core.

SQLAlchemy is most famous for its object-relational mapper (ORM), an optional component that provides the data mapper pattern, where classes can be mapped to the database in open ended, multiple ways - allowing the object model and database schema to develop in a cleanly decoupled way from the beginning.