You don't have to use the ORM, but if you do you get a lot of cool stuff "for free". Also it's one of the better ORMs, a lot of people were put off by the fair

You don't have to use the ORM, but if you do you get a lot of cool stuff "for free". Also it's one of the better ORMs, a lot of people were put off by the fairly broken implementation in early RoR.