What is a difference between Entity Framework and ADO.NET?

Experience Level: Medior

Tags: .NETDatabasesEntity FrameworkORMPerformance

Answer

EF is built on top of ADO.NET
EF is ORM (object relational mapping) and brings the advantages the ORM normally brings.
EF makes things comfortable when working with databases.
EF helps you to work with strongly-typed represenation of data objects/enities.
EF is providing a higher level of abstraction to work with data, isolating the app developer from the underlying data model
EF aims to help you to be more productive, write less data access code, write data access layer faster with less lines of code
If the primary criteria is raw performance, go for ADO.NET and and write efficient hand-optimized SQL.
When you are using EF, you can always fine tune specific queries or data operations, without losing the abstraction that makes programming easier on the non-performance-critical code, which is the largest part of any business aplication.
EF can be a performance killer if not used properly - always check your queries in profiler