# Ember.js

28 Hacker News commenters recommended Ember.js and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free JavaScript framework people value for upgrades with few breaking changes, LTS releases and maintainable apps. Critics most often cite a complex API and hard hiring.

## Why people recommend it

- Upgrades with few breaking changes (2 comments): "It looks like this is the framework you use if you want to incrementally improve stuff without having to go through radical shifts between versions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48333318)) "It's also a true drop-in replacement." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47182744))
- Architecture differs from mainstream frameworks (2 comments): "it represents approaches to frontend web dev that are very different from the standard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48331022)) "There are a lot of good architectural decisions in there that I miss when I'm in React" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48340220))
- Regular releases and LTS versions (2 comments): "Ember's actively maintained and improved with 6 week release cycles and LTS versions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334000)) "made for really maintainable apps in the long run" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49875383))
- Productive with many built-in features (2 comments): "Outperforms in many areas and has more out of the box features like proto storage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47304278)) "the productivity once you got it was immense" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874975))

## What people warn about

- Seen as niche or legacy (2 comments): "literally nobody except billion dollar companies use this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48331656)) "basically CakePHP at this point. A relic of days gone by." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48331702))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [React](https://hackerapproved.com/p/react.md): 482 recommend
- [htmx](https://hackerapproved.com/p/htmx.md): 320 recommend
- [Svelte](https://hackerapproved.com/p/svelte.md): 151 recommend
- [Vue](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vue.md): 121 recommend
- [Angular](https://hackerapproved.com/p/angular.md): 82 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Ember.js", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ember/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).