Easel programming language
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 74 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Recommended for beginner-friendly 2D games where multiplayer is automatic, sitting between Scratch and Python. Main caveat: closed source, and some find it hard to start with.
Recommended for beginner-friendly 2D games where multiplayer is automatic, sitting between Scratch and Python. Main caveat: closed source, and some find it hard to start with.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 4 years
Median of the 10 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Multiplayer built into the language
“building our own programming language meant we could build multiplayer into the fabric of the programming language, making multiplayer 100% automatic”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Easel - learn to code by making games you can play together” “Putting the rollback netcode into the programming language means it always works 100% of the time and you can't make a mistake”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)” “A beginner-friendly programming language for 2D games where multiplayer is automatic.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (January 2026)” - Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)”
- Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Hotspots and Nine Slices (what's new in Easel)”
- Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “Chrome and Edge are removing XSLT: what breaks and what does not”
- Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “Easel: What's New? (Feb 2026)”
- Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)”
- Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)”
Beginner-friendly for learning to code
“Easel is like halfway between Scratch and Python. It keeps a lot of the intuitive parts of Scratch's cool programming model, but in text form.”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)” “a beginner-friendly online programming language for teenagers who want to learn to code”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)” “A beginner-friendly programming language for 2D games where multiplayer is automatic.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (January 2026)” - Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “Easel: What's New? (Feb 2026)”
- Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Easel Now Has Stencils”
- Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)”
IDE tools share data, speed workflow
“Using an IDE where all the tools take data and share data has dramatically changed my workflow.”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Easel Turns One One year of building my own IDE in Clojure” “I use this for everything from backend system design to iterating on different UIs.”
Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Easel – Interactive review boards for agent feedback loops” “I like the idea of being able to quickly make little tools in your IDE.”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Easel Turns One One year of building my own IDE in Clojure” - Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Easel Turns One One year of building my own IDE in Clojure”
- Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it”
Designed to match how people think
“a 2D game programming language that represents how I think (some) games should be made”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “Replacing components with Implicit IDs (Easel)” “It’s a more declarative way of making games which I think is lots more productive.”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)” “designed to match how humans, not computers, think about game logic”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)” - Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “What's new in Easel (Nov 2025)”
- Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Easel Now Has Stencils”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to understand at first
“It's not apparently simple, and a beginner wouldn't be able to distinguish it from any other games programming framework.”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)” “Even after clicking around a bit on your website, I still had almost no idea what your engine can do”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “A Physics Engine with Incremental Rollback for Multiplayer Games” “It's interesting to me that Easel looks declarative but is imperative.”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)” - Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Easel Now Has Stencils”
Closed source, including interpreter
“If I understand correctly, the language is not open source, right? Not even the interpreter?”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it” “the terrible closed source Easel App”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Grid: Forever free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rust | 2,039 | 973 | 68% | 13 | 4 yrs118 owners | Approved |
| Go | 1,254 | 651 | 66% | 13 | 5.9 yrs63 owners | — |
| Python | 1,067 | 821 | 57% | 12 | 18 yrs64 owners | — |
| Zig | 743 | 449 | 62% | 12 | 1 yr27 owners | — |
| Easel programming languageThis page | 16 | 7 | 70% | 10 | 4 yrs10 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 48 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Recently I added tilemaps, which I think makes it much more possible to make bigger, more interesting games.”
“We support App Router, Pages Router, SSR, ISR, Server Actions, etc. natively without an adapter.”
“A place for teenagers to make multiplayer web games and share them with each other.”
“The Easel has internal wiring that minimizes excessive wiring needs”
“Putting the rollback netcode into the programming language means it always works 100% of the time and you can't make a mistake”
“A programming language which lets you code multiplayer games like singleplayer games.”
“I use this for everything from backend system design to iterating on different UIs.”
“A programming language that makes your game multiplayer automatically!”
“so that teenagers and adults alike can make the cool multiplayer games they dream of”
“A game programming language that makes your game multiplayer automatically.”
“It’s a more declarative way of making games which I think is lots more productive.”
“Even after clicking around a bit on your website, I still had almost no idea what your engine can do”
“I think they are a great tool for high-level programming.”
“It's intended as a fun way for beginners to learn to code”
“It's a beginner-friendly programming language that features automatic multiplayer”
“the terrible closed source Easel App”
“A beginner-friendly programming language for 2D games where multiplayer is automatic.”
“building our own programming language meant we could build multiplayer into the fabric of the programming language, making multiplayer 100% automatic”
“Using an IDE where all the tools take data and share data has dramatically changed my workflow.”
“I like the idea of being able to quickly make little tools in your IDE.”
“This sounds very close to my dream IDE”
“This is really cool, these patterns surface all the time and usually turn into ugly code!”
“Well you're definitely doing the right work in just making appealing games with it.”
“Easel is like halfway between Scratch and Python. It keeps a lot of the intuitive parts of Scratch's cool programming model, but in text form.”
“It's not apparently simple, and a beginner wouldn't be able to distinguish it from any other games programming framework.”
“a beginner-friendly online programming language for teenagers who want to learn to code”
“this seems like a really thought through language design”
“Easel works for players becoming makers but can feel strange for people who come from other languages”
“I went through the demo on the first page and found it quite complex”
“beginner-friendly 2D game programming language for online games”
“If I understand correctly, the language is not open source, right? Not even the interpreter?”
“I find it's super productive”
“This looks promising. How come I hadn't heard of it??”
“It's been a lot of work but also a lot of fun!”
“a 2D game programming language that represents how I think (some) games should be made”
“Great documentation, by the by!”
“it wouldn't be great to build a competitive FPS or MOBA with this because the game state is replicated to all players”
“It's interesting to me that Easel looks declarative but is imperative.”
“designed to match how humans, not computers, think about games”
“designed to match how humans, not computers, think about game logic”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.