Even Hibernate has `em.createNativeQuery("type your sql here", SomeResult.class)`. I've never seen an ORM (for an RDBMS) that didn't make it easy to run SQL.
Then what's the point of using Hibernate? Just use the ODBM driver... why are you dragging the gorilla and all of the jungle with you if all you wanted was a banana?
Since we're talking about Hibernate, I assume you mean the JDBC driver? Because the API is tedious and unpleasant.
The mapping of database results to java objects with Hibernate is convenient. The basic "load entity, change a couple fields, let Hibernate persist it" flow is convenient. In a limited set of cases, basic entity graph navigation is convenient.
As I said, if you're working in an object-based language, by definition you need something that maps relations to objects. Hibernate is a competent choice. There are other competent choices, but JDBC is not one of them unless your app is trivial.
Anyways. Hibernate works on top of JDBC, so, if you like its interface, then it means you could make your own, but skipping >99% of the rest of Hibernate code that has nothing to do with wrapping the driver.
Or, imagine there was a library Hibernate', that threw away all the ORM stuff, and only offered mapping of SQL results to Java objects and sending queries to the database. Then, why not use Hibernate' instead of Hibernate?
NB. About triviality. From experience: trivial apps tend to work OK with ORM. Non-trivial will usually ditch the ORM because of performance, missing functionality and general difficulty with servicing it. So, it's the other way around: if you are shooting for the stars, you are probably not going to use Hibernate, Hibernate is one of the variety of tools that helps losers loose less, it's not a tool for the winners.
What you've said makes no sense. The "ORM stuff" is what I want, the Object Relational Mapping. Taking relational data and converting it back and forth to objects. And Hibernate is actually pretty good at this.
I think you've built up a strawman in you mind of what you think "ORM" is. Yes Hibernate is huge and has a lot of features that people shouldn't use. But you can say the same about Microsoft Word, the problem is that everyone uses a different 5% of the huge feature set.
People who work with these technologies on a daily basis don't screw up the core acronyms. I suggest softening your opinion and dropping the platitudes.
It's clear that you want ORM. But you didn't explain why you want it. For all I know, you like to suffer, and that's why you want it, but you've made no compelling argument for people who don't like to suffer to use ORM.
BTW. I'm absolutely on-board with you: nobody should use Microsoft Word. There's absolutely no reason to do that. It's a marketing ploy with a lot of grease money paid to people in charge of procurement in various places. It's absolutely not about 5% of features. It's just downright worst kind of text editor that's in popular use today. Ask me how I know this? I worked in a newspaper! Somehow, Microsoft never ventured into this field, and didn't sell their garbage there. And nobody uses Microsoft in book publishing or any other sort of publishing. Not for any % of its features. So much so that if you bring a manuscript (as an outside author) to publish a book or an article in a newspaper / magazine, and it will be in MS Word format, you'll be most likely asked to convert it to another format. And we are talking about people who need a lot of different features of text editing!
And, I really don't care about what you have to suggest. You aren't in a position to make suggestions really ;)
