 | EasyAF Entity DesignerEasyAF.EntityDesigner is a modern evolution of Microsoft's EDMX experience that works with EF 6.5 and SDK-style projects targeting .NET Framework AND .NET 8+.A modern |
Microsoft's Entity Framework Designer is dead.Yet it still ships inside Visual Studio 2026, broken and out of date. Unable to work with moderm projects or SQL providers. And not accepting new PRs. Microsoft's (understandable but still annoying) corporate calculus is leaving developers high and dry. So the EDMXperts at CloudNimble have taken matters into our own hands. Welcome to the EasyAF Entity DesignerEasyAF is CloudNimble's platform for warp-speed application development with .NET, powered by EDMX. EasyAF.EntityDesigner is a modern evolution of Microsoft's EDMX experience that works with EF 6.5 and SDK-style projects targeting .NET Framework AND .NET 8+. We've stripped it down and removed all the legacy code, dependencies, and ugly WinForms UI that bogged it down. It's now refreshed with a lighter codebase, modern UI enhanced by WPF, and a bevy of new features. ScreenshotsSimple, Modern User ExperienceWorks with .NET 10 + SDK-style Projects +
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| Feature Supported | Microsoft EF6Tools | EasyAF Entity Designer |
|---|---|---|
| .NET Framework 4.8+ | ✅ | ✅ |
| .NET 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 | ❌ | ✅ |
| Entity Framework v1-5 Support | ✅ | ❌ |
Microsoft.Data.SqlClient Support |
❌ | ✅ |
| SDK-Style Projects | ❌ | ✅ |
| Intuitive User Experience | ❌ | ✅ |
| High-Res Image Export | ❌ | ✅ |
| SVG Export | ❌ | ✅ |
| Mermaid Diagram Export | ❌ | ✅ |
Why Now?
The Age of AI makes it easy to keep just about anything up-to-date. We recently took the time to make some minor improvements to Microsoft's still-shipping EF6Tools codebase, and were rejected.
The thing is, EDMX is still a very powerful language for describing a database schema. We use it to power data access and code generation in both EF6 and EFCore applications across multiple cloud providers.
In fact, Entity Framework 6.5 runs great on modern .NET, It's a valid compatibility path to get legacy apps onto .NET 8+, and there are thousands of EDMX-based applications still being maintained.
We don't need something new here. We just need something that works.
Planned Improvements
Features
- Updated layout engine for cleaner diagram re-organization
- New "Dark Mode" rendering style
- More control over SVG outputs
- Better integration with EasyAF tooling
Codebase
- Continued simplification and modernization
- Move DSL-related code to a single assembly
- Consolidate projects that don't need to be separated
- Better leverage C# 14 language features
- Improve test coverage