Phage Explorer
Shares rank 21 of 31 interactive visualizations by recommenders
People recommend it as a free educational tool that labels phages as lytic or lysogenic. Critics find the visualizations underdeveloped and say it seems broken at first.
People recommend it as a free educational tool that labels phages as lytic or lysogenic. Critics find the visualizations underdeveloped and say it seems broken at first.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Visualizations need more effort
“It's rather nice looking, but it would have been so much nicer if you'd done it yourself.”
Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Phage Explorer” “It would have been great if a bit more effort had been invested in the visualization side”
Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Phage Explorer”
Other interactive visualizations people recommend
The four most recommended other interactive visualizations, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ciechanow.ski | 33 | 1 | 97% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Size of Life | 30 | 4 | 88% | 2 | — | — |
| PGSimCity | 27 | 3 | 90% | 1 | — | — |
| Ithihāsas | 18 | 3 | 86% | 1 | — | — |
| Phage ExplorerThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
All 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I liked that it specifically annotates "Lytic" vs "Lysogenic" categorization for phages.”
“those data might be invalid because you are not an expert in this topic”
“It would have been great if a bit more effort had been invested in the visualization side”
“It's rather nice looking, but it would have been so much nicer if you'd done it yourself.”
“I really wouldn't trust a website that uses Gemini's image models for generating scientific diagrams”
“Thank you for sharing such a wonderful educational tool!”
“my first impression was that it seems a bit broken”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.