Most developers using modern PHP frameworks know what an ORM is. What’s less frequently understood is the underlying concepts that vary between different ORM implementations. In this talk, we’ll study the differences and come away with a richer understanding of what the two major ORM patterns—Active Record and DataMapper—do differently and what effect that has on the software projects we build with them. Example code will use Laravel’s Eloquent ORM and Doctrine, which is usually used with Symfony, but apply to many other PHP frameworks as well.