I mainly checked out sqlx as it seemed like compile-time checked queries gave some of the advantages of sqlc in Go. However, I was a bit disappointed. Compile time checking requires you to connect to a database at compile time, with the schema already set up. Sqlc doesn't even require this at codegen time in Go, at the cost of needing to emulate some of the underlying database behaviors. I'm sure it's not a deal breaker to everyone, but I find the premise of needing a database to make queries against for every single build to be way, way, way too much baggage.

The idea of checking the queries against a schema is great. Even better if you can use it to infer arguments and return types.