To be precise, Esqueleto isn&#x27;t a smaller alternative, it&#x27;s a layer on top of Persistent that gives you a typed DSL for SQL. It&#x27;s been pretty nice when I used it, most things that I wanted to do in SQL were easily expressed. Exotic SQL functions that weren&#x27;t available are easily imported in a type-safe way.<p>acid-state is a smaller, no-SQL alternative [1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackage.haskell.org&#x2F;package&#x2F;acid-state" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackage.haskell.org&#x2F;package&#x2F;acid-state</a>