Processing
Ranked 2 of 3 creative coding environments by recommenders
Free, beginner-friendly environment for drawing and animating with simple code, loved for generative art and Perlin noise. One critic notes missing gradient fills.
Free, beginner-friendly environment for drawing and animating with simple code, loved for generative art and Perlin noise. One critic notes missing gradient fills.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: 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
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Beginner friendly and easy to learn
“easy programmability from tinker-friendly stuff like pygame or processing.org or löve”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Amiga Screens: A Primer” “noob friendly stuff like Processing and Kaboom is great and highly recommended”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “The Excommunicated Devs Making Games with AI” Generative art and Perlin noise
“I ended up learning enough processing to mimic a lot of what he did with the connected dots. It was great.”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Generative Art over the Years” “I love Processing and Perlin noise.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Getting Creative with Perlin Noise Fields”
Other creative coding environments people recommend
The two most recommended other creative coding environments, 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.
See all 3 creative coding environments, rankedWhat people said
10 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“easy programmability from tinker-friendly stuff like pygame or processing.org or löve”
“feels like the design industry has forgotten about things like Processing”
“I love Processing and Perlin noise.”
“they haven't quite clicked”
“I ended up learning enough processing to mimic a lot of what he did with the connected dots. It was great.”
“Processing lacks features like gradient fills that limit what's possible”
“The immediacy of writing a few simple commands, hitting "Run" and seeing graphical output is still unsurpassed”
“Jared went on to do a lot more amazing stuff in Processing”
“noob friendly stuff like Processing and Kaboom is great and highly recommended”
“reminds me of Proce55ing in its prime, used for complex webviz like this”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.