scikit-learn
Shares rank 14 of 19 machine learning libraries by recommenders
People recommend it for evaluation, model selection and calibration tools, and for reliable training without manual tuning. Some would not use it for production code.
People recommend it for evaluation, model selection and calibration tools, and for reliable training without manual tuning. Some would not use it for production code.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: 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
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.3 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
Strong library support and ecosystem
“a non-professional programmer can use scikit-learn and pandas and matplotlib to put their skills on wheels”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: Why Hasn't Clojure Caught On?” “the brilliant library support available in scikit learn”
Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Julia: Performance Tips” Fast, reliable model training
“there's something to say for a fast model trainer that makes a good model 100% of the time without manual intervention”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Nike's Crisis and the Economics of Brand Decay” “sklearn is obviously faster and great for day to day work”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Prima Veritas – Deterministic Analytics Engine for Reproducible ML”
Other machine learning libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other machine learning libraries, 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 19 machine learning libraries, rankedWhat people said
11 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“scikit-learn has great tools for eval, model selection, probability calibration and all the other things that make the difference”
“scikit learn for ML, etc.”
“a non-professional programmer can use scikit-learn and pandas and matplotlib to put their skills on wheels”
“scikit-learn had a primitive "print everything" strategy”
“without needing the heavy dependencies that sklearn adds”
“Similar to how I would not write production code with sklearn”
“the brilliant library support available in scikit learn”
“When scikit-learn implemented Random Forests they only included classification, regression, and overall permutation importance.”
“there's something to say for a fast model trainer that makes a good model 100% of the time without manual intervention”
“This is also a constant issue working with scikit-learn”
“sklearn is obviously faster and great for day to day work”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.