# Flask

19 Hacker News commenters recommended Flask and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Flask for its simple, focused design and proven reliability in production. Critics say it leaves admin, forms and templates to plugins, so integration is less complete than Django.

## Why people recommend it

- Simple, focused, no hidden conventions (3 comments): "I think Flask is nice because it's so singularly focused on just one thing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608220)) "Flask for its elegant simplicity without hidden conventions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193923)) "Serves my needs! Simple and dumb." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48257196))
- Proven in production and reliable (4 comments): "python flask with an sqlite db which served me well for years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49557702)) "Flask has its issues, but it will absolutely work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46189662)) "Flask handles production traffic perfectly fine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191983))
- Fast to build with (3 comments): "you can get further quicker with something like flask" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45801624)) "server-side processing that flask makes easy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46868008)) "I found myself moving way more quickly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204312))

## What people warn about

- Needs plugins for admin and forms (3 comments): "Every Flask project I work on slowly reinvents Django via a combination of plugins of varied quality and custom code/plugins." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442158)) "the Flask part was juggling plugins for admin, forms and templates that Django already has included" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46794380)) "things hang together much more loosely and it means the integration just isn't as complete" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46154958))
- Higher complexity than Django alternatives (2 comments): "the higher complexity of the Flask version is no way justified" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47032868)) "setting that up for the same scale would be complicated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49510911))
- Hard to change as projects grow (2 comments): "Every Flask project I work on slowly reinvents Django via a combination of plugins of varied quality and custom code/plugins." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442158)) "A bad idea in retrospect, but hard to change now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46119011))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Ruby on Rails](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ruby-on-rails.md): 337 recommend
- [Django](https://hackerapproved.com/p/django.md): 277 recommend
- [Next.js](https://hackerapproved.com/p/next-js.md): 127 recommend
- [Phoenix Framework](https://hackerapproved.com/p/phoenix.md): 85 recommend
- [Laravel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/laravel.md): 71 recommend

## Cite as

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