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Ask HN: How many of you built your app on top of a framework and which one

12 points by blcArmadillo ↗ HN
I'm just beginning to develop an idea I've had for a little while. There are lots of generic components to be implemented: MVC, authentication, secure REST API. It seems like it would be best to start with a framework but I can't seem to find one that has these components and yet still feels lightweight. Did you build your app on top of a framework? If so which one if not why not?

14 comments

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sunsu
I started working with Django about 6 months ago and have loved it. I had been a long time anti-framework guy, but can't say I have had any huge complaints with Django so far.

I particularly have enjoyed the ORM, although you need to be careful not to get carried away with it. Its easy to create slow queries with it and don't assume it will always get indexes correct.

I have also enjoyed the community around Django. I enjoy being able to search a particular problem and find that someone already has created a Django app to solve it. In my PHP days (RIP) this was possible, but usually ended up being a lot more ugly.

autalpha
Same with me here. I switched from using CakePHP to Django and haven't touched any PHP since. I would highly recommend Django.

With that being said, I think while development without a framework "might" feel more lightweight, you will pay for it later when you're maintaining your app. As they always say, you build it once but you have to maintain it forever. I think investing in a framework will most likely pay off in the future even if there is an overhead usually associated with framework.

philgo20
Django powers most of matchFWD.com

We tend to think that whatever feature we need, we just google django-feature-x and we find a decent implementation. And the community is great.

we like supertagging, django activity-stream, haystack, django-cities, south, sentry, easy-thumbnails, taggit.

We're about to release a few django apps we've made too.

hrasm
I just started building something. I had no experience in any of the web friendly languages before. I was looking for suggestions on frameworks and stumbled upon CodeIgniter (PHP based MVC architecture framework). I have been able to get satisfactory results. I think I might have had a similar level of success had I picked Django or some other f/w.
kodeshpa
I started with CodeIgniter for PHP project , works fine but I stumbled in debugging. Dont have easy way to debug.
hrasm
Agreed. Debugging is a PITA in CI.
TheSmoke
1 with Ruby on Rails and 1 with Pyramid.
umenline
Qt,ACE,libcrul,boost,openssl
rlawson
if java then Stripes is lightweight but lots of features
Yxven
I also highly recommend Django.
trafficlight
I've been working with web2py for about 6 months. I was new to Python at the time and it seemed like a framework that could get me pretty far pretty fast. So far it's been fantastic.

I'm building a digital signage application. I'm using web2py on Apache for my serverside control panel/mobile management website. I'm also using web2py on the display side with it's built in webserver.

To tie everything together I'm primarily pushing around JSON via Beanstalk. All other management of the client ends is done via Fabric.

herval
Ruby on Rails on top of Heroku on top of Facebook. So it's basically an app framework inside a social framework hosted on a hosting "framework" :-)
[dead] haploid
We use Wicket for most of our web-based applications.

http://wicket.apache.org/

It's Java, though, which is decidedly uncool with the HN crowd.

kongqiu
Since I am not a programmer, I started with Drupal. Not bad for what it is. Currently learning Rails and loving it.