I use an ORM with a popular web framework (Eloquent/Laravel) in the PHP space. What I've always done is use the Eloquent AR approach for simple stuff where it

I use an ORM with a popular web framework (Eloquent/Laravel) in the PHP space. What I've always done is use the Eloquent AR approach for simple stuff where it fits well but actual complex querying is done with 'raw' PDO/SQL since frankly writing complex compound queries using the ORM is more wordy and less understandable.