You should learn SQL first then ORM afterward. Most modern ORM have escape hatch to let you write raw SQL. Your favorite web dev language will have a dominant

You should learn SQL first then ORM afterward. Most modern ORM have escape hatch to let you write raw SQL. Your favorite web dev language will have a dominant ORM. C#, Python, Elixir, Ruby all have a popular ORM that works within a popular framework. ORM will make working with database and web framework easier. I do agree with post that querying in ORM can be hard and sometime not possible without raw SQL. Writing query for Ecto, Elixir's most popular ORM, can be tricky when you want to do dynamic query.