Just to mention a third way - I've been happy with a QueryBuilder on recent projects. The DB access parts of the code look similar to the rest of the codebase,

Just to mention a third way - I've been happy with a QueryBuilder on recent projects. The DB access parts of the code look similar to the rest of the codebase, rather than a chunk of text embedded that looks like ransom note (kidding - I know caps aren't mandatory). Enough fine control to closely influence the generated query. No real performance penalty. There's also a good mocking library available for tests.