If you simply don't attempt to shoehorn your data into a graph structure then you don't need an ORM in the first place. ORMs only make development easier insofa

If you simply don't attempt to shoehorn your data into a graph structure then you don't need an ORM in the first place. ORMs only make development easier insofar as you insist on turning your relational data into graphs. In all instances I've found that raw SQL or a good query builder (not an ORM, e.g. SQLAlchemy core) and an approach to handling the data as it is (relational) and not as you might want to pretend it to be (graph) is sufficient to ensure the resulting software is easier to develop and maintain. In situations where I have needed graph data I have found graph databases to work well there too.