Flask
Shares rank 18 of 63 web frameworks by recommenders
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.
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.
31 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 61%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Simple, focused, no hidden conventions
“I think Flask is nice because it's so singularly focused on just one thing”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Building a robotics research setup that lives next to my desk” “Flask for its elegant simplicity without hidden conventions”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: ReadyKit – Superfast SaaS Starter with Multi-Tenant Workspaces” “Serves my needs! Simple and dumb.”
Comment from 24 May 2026 in “Show HN: Git-based front-end interface for Hugo” Proven in production and reliable
“python flask with an sqlite db which served me well for years”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “GPT-6 Astra” “Flask has its issues, but it will absolutely work.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: ReadyKit – Superfast SaaS Starter with Multi-Tenant Workspaces” “Flask handles production traffic perfectly fine.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: ReadyKit – Superfast SaaS Starter with Multi-Tenant Workspaces” - Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: ReadyKit – Superfast SaaS Starter with Multi-Tenant Workspaces”
Fast to build with
“you can get further quicker with something like flask”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Why we migrated from Python to Node.js” “server-side processing that flask makes easy”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “My (very) fast zero-allocation webserver using OxCaml” “I found myself moving way more quickly.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Needs plugins for admin and forms
“Every Flask project I work on slowly reinvents Django via a combination of plugins of varied quality and custom code/plugins.”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “The company I work for is losing all of its humanity, I don't know where to go” “the Flask part was juggling plugins for admin, forms and templates that Django already has included”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Notes on Starting to Use Django” “things hang together much more loosely and it means the integration just isn't as complete”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Django 6” Higher complexity than Django alternatives
“the higher complexity of the Flask version is no way justified”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “picol: A Tcl interpreter in 500 lines of code” “setting that up for the same scale would be complicated”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “Startup Anti-Patterns” Hard to change as projects grow
“Every Flask project I work on slowly reinvents Django via a combination of plugins of varied quality and custom code/plugins.”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “The company I work for is losing all of its humanity, I don't know where to go” “A bad idea in retrospect, but hard to change now”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Response to "Ruby Is Not a Serious Programming Language"”
Other web frameworks people recommend
The four most recommended other web frameworks, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby on Rails | 337 | 145 | 70% | 12 | 14 yrs38 owners | Approved |
| Django | 277 | 97 | 74% | 12 | 15 yrs38 owners | Approved |
| Next.js | 127 | 256 | 33% | 12 | 3 yrs6 owners | — |
| Phoenix Framework | 85 | 11 | 89% | 12 | 8 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| FlaskThis page | 19 | 12 | 61% | 9 | — | — |
What people said
30 of the 34 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“python flask with an sqlite db which served me well for years”
“setting that up for the same scale would be complicated”
“Something like Pydantic, Flask or Django + Jinja generally doesn't do that.”
“node.js or python (flask) based apps using WSGI”
“I think Flask is nice because it's so singularly focused on just one thing”
“I learned Flask from Grinberg, god bless the man.”
“"Old" SSR apps are mature, not obsolete.”
“Every Flask project I work on slowly reinvents Django via a combination of plugins of varied quality and custom code/plugins.”
“fell for the same dumb thing briefly”
“Serves my needs! Simple and dumb.”
“Everything else is bloated, slow and doesn't give you enough room for optimization.”
“he's the creator of flask among many things”
“Flask is also not a production-grade webserver”
“so people use Flask or something beefier”
“the higher complexity of the Flask version is no way justified”
“Flask is a fantastic tool, with a reasonable abstraction given the high complexity”
“server-side processing that flask makes easy”
“the Flask part was juggling plugins for admin, forms and templates that Django already has included”
“the amount of code necessary to add a couple of fields to a form is boggling”
“It's why I've always eschewed stuff like flask even when I felt like Django was going to be overkill.”
“I found myself moving way more quickly.”
“Flask for its elegant simplicity without hidden conventions”
“Flask handles production traffic perfectly fine.”
“flask is a proven WS framework that just works”
“Python in almost 2026 is probably one of the worst choices for a web server”
“Flask has its issues, but it will absolutely work.”
“things hang together much more loosely and it means the integration just isn't as complete”
“A bad idea in retrospect, but hard to change now”
“these look like global module imports, but they're actually request specific”
“you can get further quicker with something like flask”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.