Regarding the for loops I guess you mean the 1+N problem? The great thing about SA is that you can just change your loading strategy at any point to fix it with

Regarding the for loops I guess you mean the 1+N problem? The great thing about SA is that you can just change your loading strategy at any point to fix it without having to touch any other code. q = db.query(P) # add this later to fix your issues # q = q.options(subqueryload('children')) p = q.filter(P.id==73) for c in p.children: # oops, loads of db queries here pass