Interestingly, I went the other way around, did a toy project with django, hated the ORM, didn't like the template so much, and at the tolime django didn't support python 3. I then discovered bottlepy sqlalchemy base (so I write raw SQL, but I can easily switch database underneath), and mako templates, and was in a much better place.

I have also worked in flask environments, flask does have the advantage of having a bigger plugin ecosystem, and a bigger network effect (way more users!), which translate in more recipes, entries on SO, etc...