Look into Doctrine.

Doctrine 1.2 implements Active Record. Doctrine 2+ is a DataMapper ORM.

Also, check out Xyster. It’s based on the Data Mapper pattern.

Also, take a look at DataMapper vs. Active Record.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Ian P

There are only two good ones: Doctrine and Propel. We favor Doctrine, and it works well with Symfony. However if you’re looking for database support besides the main ones you’ll have to write your own code.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Ilya Kochetov

I’ve been developing Pork.dbObject on my own. (A simple PHP ORM and Active Record implementation)
The main reason is that I find most ORMs too heavy.

The main thought of Pork.dbObejct is to be light-weight and simple to set up. No bunch of XML files, just one function call in the constructor to bind it, and an addRelation or addCustomRelation to define a relation to another dbObject.

Give it a look: Pork.dbObject

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by SchizoDuckie

I just started with Kohana, and it seems the closest to Ruby on Rails without invoking all the complexity of multiple configuration files like with Propel.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Zak

If you are looking for an ORM, like Hibernate, you should have look at PMO.

It can be easily integrated in an SOA architecture (there is only a webservice classe to develop).

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by anonymous

Try RedBean, its requires:

• No configuration
• No database (it creates everything on the fly)
• No models
• etc.

It even does all the locking and transactions for you and monitors performance in the background. (Heck! it even does garbage collection….) Best of all… you don’t have to write a single… line of code… Jesus this, ORM layer, saved me ass!

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by winterswk

My friend Kien and I have improved upon an earlier version of an ORM that he had written prior to PHP 5.3. We have essentially ported over Ruby on Rails’ Active Record to PHP. It is still lacking some key features we want such as transactions, composite primary key support, a few more adapters (only MySQL and SQLite 3 work right now). But, we are very close to finishing this stuff up. You can take a look at PHP ActiveRecord with PHP 5.3.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Jacques Fuentes

Try PHP ADOdb.

I can’t say it’s the best, because I haven’t used the others. But it’s fast, it supports Memcached and caching.

And it’s waaaay faster than Zend Framework’s DB/Select.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Salam Fall

There’s a fantastic ORM included in the QCubed framework; it’s based on code generation and scaffolding. Unlike the ActiveRecord that’s based on reflection and is generally slow, code generation makes skeleton classes for you based on the database and lets you customize them afterward. It works like a charm.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Alex Weinstein

Try Doctrine2. It’s probably the most powerful ORM tool for PHP. I’m mentioning it separately from Doctrine 1, because it’s a completely different piece of software. It’s been rewritten from scratch, is still in beta phase, but it’s usable now and developed.

It’s a very complex ORM, but well designed. Lot of magic from original Doctrine 1 disappeared. It provides a complete solution, and you can write your own ORM on top of Doctrine2 or use just one of its layers.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by tomp

Axon ORM is part of the Fat-Free Framework – it features an on-the-fly mapper. No code generators. No stupid XML/YAML configuration files. It reads the database schema directly from the backend, so in most CRUD operations you don’t even have to extend a base model. It works with all major PDO-supported database engines: MySQL, SQLite, SQL Server/Sybase, Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc.

/* SQL */
CREATE TABLE products (
    product_id INTEGER,
    description VARCHAR(128),
    PRIMARY KEY (product_id)
);

/* PHP */
// Create
$product=new Axon('products'); // Automatically reads the above schema
$product->product_id=123;
$product->description='Sofa bed';
$product->save(); // ORM knows it's a new record

// Retrieve
$product->load('product_id=123');
echo $product->description;

// Update
$product->description='A better sofa bed';
$product->save(); // ORM knows it's an existing record

// Delete
$product->erase();

Most of all, the plug-in and accompanying SQL data access layer are just as lightweight as the framework: 14 KB (Axon) + 6 KB (SQLdb). Fat-Free is just 55 KB.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by stillstanding

Tried the ORM of Flourish library.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by eaguilar

Look at http://code.google.com/p/lworm/ . It is a really simple, but powerful, lightweight ORM system for PHP. You can also easily extend it, if you want.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Faz

A really good simple ORM is MyActiveRecord. MyActiveRecord documentation. I have been using it a lot and can say it’s very simple and well tested.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Szymon Wygnański

Looked at Syrius ORM. It’s a new ORM, the project was in a development stage, but in the next mouth it will be released in a 1.0 version.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by biancardi

Try PdoMap. Wikipedia claims that is inspired by Hibernate. Since I never used Hibernate, I cannot judge :), but I would say from my experience that is good and fast ORM that is easy to implement, with a less steep learning curve that other ORMs.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by aromawebdesign.com

Another great open source PHP ORM that we use is PHPSmartDb. It is stable and makes your code more secure and clean. The database functionality within it is hands down the easiest I have ever used with PHP 5.3.

NOTE: This answer was originally posted at StackOverflow.com by Joe