Rive
Hacker ApprovedAnimation editor in Developer tools
People see it as a possible modern Flash replacement for interactive vector animation, with scripting and game use. The most common caveat is that gated features and subscription pricing put some off, with no offline use.
People see it as a possible modern Flash replacement for interactive vector animation, with scripting and game use. The most common caveat is that gated features and subscription pricing put some off, with no offline use.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 72%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Possible modern Flash replacement
“Rive is the closest tool with the highest potential to be a Flash replacement.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Building a New Flash” “modern day reimaginings for many multimedia workflows”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “The Browser Is the Sandbox” “Rive is closest sonce they have scripring support.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Building a New Flash” - Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Macromedia Flash, from an Animator's Standpoint”
- Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Building a New Flash”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Gated features and subscription pricing
“Seeing the gated features makes me hesitant, unfortunately, but definitely considering this!”
Comment from 22 Jun 2026 in “Rive, Fast and reliable background jobs in Go” “Rive looks pretty nice, but a subscription pricing model without any option for offline use”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Building a New Flash” “I could not export my animation unless I upgraded to a paid plan”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Building a New Flash”
What people said
17 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Rive's a pretty good animation engine.”
“Seeing the gated features makes me hesitant, unfortunately, but definitely considering this!”
“making a system that is not distributed. Hell of a claim.”
“is quite competitive with what was possible back then in covering the full authoring stack”
“you'd be fighting against it, rather than being helped by it”
“It seems to have a lot of potential for game development.”
“Rive is the closest tool with the highest potential to be a Flash replacement.”
“Their primitives are also a little obscure without their IDE.”
“Rive looks pretty nice, but a subscription pricing model without any option for offline use”
“Rive is closest sonce they have scripring support.”
“All of those alternatives fail at debugging”
“quickly becoming a good Flash replacement”
“I could not export my animation unless I upgraded to a paid plan”
“There are other apps that give you animated vector graphics, in an IDE, with coding.”
“modern day reimaginings for many multimedia workflows”
“Tools like Rive are helping us get closer”
“with not so stellar results and a taste in my mouth so bad”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.