DBIx::Lite was written with some goals in mind, that no other available module provides. Such goals/key features are: no need to define your database schema (most features work without one and some advanced features only require some bits, and still not the full table definitions) no need to connect to database: the module can just generate SQL for you chained methods with lazy SQL generation joins/relationships optional custom classes for results and resultsets with custom methods SQL::Abstract syntax paging features (with Data::Page) WWW: https://metacpan.org/release/DBIx-Lite