SQLalchemy is two packages in to one; Core & ORM. ORM is built on top of SQLalchemy.
For example, I’m receiving data from an API and I’m inserting it in to a SQL database via SQLalchemy. Should I use Core or ORM?
When is it best to use one over the other?
Its mostly preference, but its possible that SQLAlchemy might (or already did?) deprecate Core at some time in the future. (They are deliberately ambiguous about it I guess)
If you're mostly using raw sql, it seems that SQLAlchemy is simpler and more straight-forward to implement.
If you wanna fiddle around all day with Models, Schemas, Classes, ModelSerializers and abstract everything and never deal with raw query statements again, you should probably go with ORM. But I think its too much busywork, especially if you are proficient at the sql language anyway.
When to use SQLalchemy core vs SQLalchemy ORM?