I recently found myself having to use bulk operations in EF Core 7. A quick search on Google always leads to 2 popular solutions :
For an enterprise, in both cases, the solution is not free, and a license needs to be purchased.
So the first step I had to do was to compare both libraries.
In this section, I will just compare some basic features to get a good overview of both libraries.
| Features | EFCore.BulkExtensions | Z.EntityFramework.Extensions |
|---|---|---|
| BulkSaveChanges | Yes (many bugs) | Yes |
| BulkInsert + Identity | Yes | Yes |
| BulkInsert + Identity Retured | Yes (slow) | Yes |
| BulkInsert + Guid Application Generated | Yes | Yes |
| BulkInsert + Guid Database Generated | No | Yes |
| BulkInsert + TPC | No | Yes |
| BulkInsert + TPH | Yes (slow) | Yes |
| BulkInsert + TPT | No | Yes |
| BulkInsert + Owned One | Partially | Yes |
| BulkInsert + Owned Many | No | Yes |
The library works really great for basic scenarios, but as soon as I start to play with inheritance such as TPC, TPH, TPT, the library no longer supports it. I was quite surprised that even some basic scenarios, such as saving an entity with guid generated in the database was not working.
Another big surprise I found out was when inserting in bulk and returning the identity. For hundreds of entities, the performance was very close to the Z.EntityFramework.Extensions. However, as I was inserting more entities, the gap was getting bigger and bigger.
| BulkInsert + Identity Retured | EFCore.BulkExtensions | Z.EntityFramework.Extensions |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 Entities + Identity | 350 ms | 125 ms |
| 100,000 Entities + Identity | 9200 ms | 833 ms |
Obviously, that's a big problem within the library as the primary purpose is to insert fast.
The library was compatible with all tests I performed, so I don't have any negative points.
For features, Z.EntityFramework.Extensions is the clear winner. So far, it has supported all scenarios we tried, and we have never run into a problem.
In this section, I will compare the developer experience that you can expect to get with both companies
| Category | EFCore.BulkExtensions | Z.EntityFramework.Extensions |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Starting at $800 | Starting at $999 |
| Customer Support | 2/5 | 4.5/5 |
| Product Support | 2/5 | 5/5 |
| Documentation | 2/5 | 3.5/5 |
You can see their price here:
For EFCore.BulkExtensions, Looking at their GitHub, most issues are not assigned and not answered. That sure looks like a red flag if I need to pay for a license.
For EF Extensions, looking at their GitHub, most issues are assigned and answered.
In addition, we contacted both companies by email:
Both products support EF Core 7, which is excellent!
For EFCore.BulkExtensions, after a major version is released, they look to stop to support the previous version. For example, they stop to support EF Core 5 a few months after EF Core 6 was released. They already look to have dropped the support to EF Core 6 now that EF Core 7 is available. That's a big red flag as the project we created in 2022 still uses EF Core 6, which means that bug fixes reported will not get fixed unless we move to EF Core 7.
For EF Extensions, they support all EF Core versions.
For EFCore.BulkExtensions, the only documentation found is their GitHub readme.
For EF Extensions, they have a documentation section on their website. They also have thousands of online examples. Their documentation is not the best, but online examples certainly help.
For developer experience, Z.EntityFramework.Extensions is also the winner. Indeed you pay to double the price, but it also comes with better documentation, customer support, and your legacy project is still supported.
For personal usage and if you only need to use basic features EFCore.BulkExtensions can be a good choice. However, it is hard to justify paying $500 for a license that everything seems to be lacking. Honestly, on my personal project, I preferred using Z.EntityFramework.Extensions for free by upgrading once a month; That is annoying, but at least I don't have to understand why something doesn't work.
For commercial usage, Z.EntityFramework.Extensions is the obvious winner. It costs twice as much, but it supports all features I need, and I surely feel more secure If I need help with a problem or to get support if some of my company projects still use EF Core 6 in a few years.