Why to use fluentmigrator?

Question

When and why to use FluentMigrator as Entity Framework Code-First Migration does the same job.

The two appear to be very similar, what problem or flaw does FluentMigrator solve when EF already provides classes to manipulate the database schema.

I am not clear why and when(in which cases) to use fluentmigrator?

Grating

Answer 1

Not everybody uses Entity Framework. I don't use it in my current project for example. In this scenario FluentMigrator is very useful for managing the database changes for each release.

Mycenae

Answer 2

EntityFramework kind of gives you both tasks: ORM and migration (CodeFirst).

I, for instance, use NHibernate and use FluentMigrator. The first as ORM and the second as the database migration library. You could say indeed that I am writing two faces of the same concept so it is more maintenance costs, however, I prefer higher control over this (ORM and migration separately) because you could screw up very easily if it's not explicit up front.

Envelope

Answer 3

Adding to the examples above: in case you use some Micro ORM like Dapper, you'll need a separate tool for database migrations. That's what Fluent Migrator is all about.

Ebbarta