One of the problem is that the tutorial on the emberjs website makes use of ember-data and doesn't show you anything else. You have to dig a bit further to real

One of the problem is that the tutorial on the emberjs website makes use of ember-data and doesn't show you anything else. You have to dig a bit further to realize what exactly the distinction is and what you can use instead of ember-data. It doesn't really make it explicit (maybe on purpose) that ember and ember-data are distinct projects.