For everyone using XPO, If it gives you any peace of mind—we still build all our own projects in XPO. That’s our go-to ORM, and we love it. Of course, we also support and train clients and students who work with EF Core. We’re not biased—we’re just heavily caffeinated and experienced in both camps 😄. Or maybe we are a bit…
That said, we’ve seen EF Core grow and improve a lot inside XAF, especially in the latest 25.1 release. Database Schema Updates When a New Class or Property Is Added: (Can I get an Aleluyah?) But… we’ve also seen clients with massive XPO codebases venture into EF Core territory—only to boomerang back to XPO after a few painful months (usually mumbling things like “Why did we ever leave?” while clutching their old XPO modules like a long-lost friend).
As Dennis so wisely put it: migrating from XPO to EF Core in an existing project should only be done for very strong reasons. If your team has already invested in XPO, the codebase is solid, developers are fluent, and you’re happy with the current results, then honestly, there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken. XPO continues to evolve and is more than capable of new projects too.
So unless EF Core is offering free massages and writing your unit tests for you… we’d say: think twice before making the leap.
Now, if your team is already EF-savvy and you’re starting something fresh, jump straight to 25.1 and enjoy the ride.
Let us know if you’d like to talk it through further—we’re here for you, whether you’re Team XPO, Team EF, or Team “I just want this ORM to work.” We are all Team XAF
XAF out!
P.S. This month in our Community Stand-Up, we’ll be doing a “Getting Started with EF Core and XAF” session—perfect if you’re curious or just want to see how it all fits together. Don’t miss it!
Relevant Link: https://supportcenter.devexpress.com/ticket/details/t1290174/migration-xpo-to-efcore-reuse-shared-module