It's 2025, and some ORMs are quite good (eg. Django, ActiveRecord). You can have an ORM with escape hatch of SQL. I do not understand the people who are so against ORMs.

I use ORM query interfaces 80% of the time, and for performance critical queries I can use direct SQL. But the query sanitization, smart preloading and performance checks, schema management and migration tools they often provide, and type checks / hints are really nice features of ORMs.

Furthermore, ORMs are ESPECIALLY useful in teams where you have more junior devs who need these guardrails.

I think the issue here is trying to reinvent a new ORM.