I've used sqlalchemy, i've used django, and here's the thing, _every_ time I've used them, I've needed to know and understand SQL to learn/write and debug them.

I've used sqlalchemy, i've used django, and here's the thing, _every_ time I've used them, I've needed to know and understand SQL to learn/write and debug them. Eventually, some bug comes up, and you need to peek at what queries the ORM is generating, and then peek at what is actually in the database, and etc. But at this point, you have to not only know what's going on with your particular SQL dialect, you also have to know syntax hoops for whatever particular ORM you're using. Instead of even just language + SQL, you've got language + ORM + SQL , which is even worse for focusing on whatever I was trying to build in the first place! Whereas, with a NoSQL solution, you're (probably) dealing with JSON, which works nicely and reliably and transparently in pretty much every language ever.