DBIx::Lite was written with some goals in mind, that no other
available module provides. Such goals/key features are:

no need to define your database schema (most features work without
one and some advanced features only require some bits, and still
not the full table definitions)
no need to connect to database: the module can just generate SQL
for you
chained methods with lazy SQL generation
joins/relationships
optional custom classes for results and resultsets with custom methods
SQL::Abstract syntax
paging features (with Data::Page)