[edit] despite negative expectations, I still upvoted OA cause even &quot;wrong&quot; innovation is better than stagnation.<p>pyscopg2 is pretty great. Every lib I&#x27;ve seen is based on it.  Many apps use it directly. It is the lowest, comfortable layer you&#x27;d want.  What you need on top of that is Either;<p><pre><code>  1) So minor, most just write a few helper functions&#x2F;classes

  2) So elaborate and opinionated it needs years of use&#x2F;work to get right. SQLAlchmey, Django ORM.

  3) So specific, customized to your requirements that general purpose libs&#x2F;frameworks don&#x27;t fit.
</code></pre>
Some people get tired of redoing #1 or don&#x27;t like #2&#x27;s opinions or think there should be something lighter. So, they build something they hope to be middle ground. I don&#x27;t think there is a middle ground. As you use it you realize the complexity (dbs&#x2F;SQL are much, much more complicated&#x2F;powerful than you think, the impedance between relations and objects) and middle ground projects remain &quot;toys&quot; or grow into SQLAlchemy.