Top all-time · #1178
Anvil
Company blog · anvil.works/blog · on HN as meredyddprogrammingweb
Anvil is the company blog at anvil.works, writing about programming and web. Since 2016, 57 different Hacker News readers have linked it 281 times, most often “Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-09, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 31 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Anvil's blog covers Python in the browser, including a comparison of six approaches and a Raspberry Pi web IDE post. Most comments mention the Anvil product rather than the posts.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 31 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Anvil is a free Python-based drag-and-drop web app builder
Most-linked posts?
- Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python27 people · 32 mentions · first linked 2017-10-10
- Show HN: Anvil, Visual Basic reimagined for the web12 people · 70 mentions · first linked 2016-05-12
- /4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-11-12
- /blog/python-in-the-browser-talk3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-07-02
- /open-source3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-07-02
- Prototyping a YC Startup Each Day2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-03-20
- Live Coding a Stock Portfolio App2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-03-07
- Raspberry Pi 4: Finally Fast Enough for a Web IDE2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-06-24
- Abstraction Escape Hatches and Ejector Seats2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-11-29
- Email driven apps in Python-Anvils new email service2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-07-21
What Hacker News says?
For those wondering about using it for development, it can run Anvil's web IDE: https://anvil.works/blog/raspberry-pi-4-web-ide
Comment linking /blog/raspberry-pi-4-web-ide
on “Raspberry Pi 4”Submitted Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python as a story · 542 points
HN discussionI assume you're talking about https://anvil.works here. That tension ("hiding facts") is there in every abstraction, but there are some luxuries to the way we do it. By putting a whole, consistent layer over the top of the web platform (in our case, Python and a traditional UI toolkit with a GUI designer), rather than patching little holes in usability here and there, we can prevent you from stubbing your toe on (eg…
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on “Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?”Submitted Prototyping a YC Startup Each Day as a story · 206 points
HN discussionIf anything, this understates the problem. A modal web application today takes an absolute minimum of five programming languages and three frameworks: * HTML * CSS * JS * A server-side language (eg Python) * SQL And then come the (leaky) abstractions on top of them: * A framework to make JS bearable (eg Angular) * A framework to make server-side bearable (eg Django) * A framework to make CSS bearable (eg Bootstrap)…
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on “Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?”Submitted Live Coding a Stock Portfolio App as a story · 61 points
HN discussionAllow me to present: https://anvil.works/ Visual interface editor? Check. Component-based UI model? Check. (It's all in Python, everything is an object, very Delphi-ish.) Back-end communication? Check. (One-line RPC to call functions on the server.) Database integration? Check. (The built-in datastore runs on Postgres, and lets you do things like delegate views on a table directly to the client. Mix this with data b…
Comment linking /
on “Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile”Submitted Open-Sourcing the Anvil App Server as a story · 33 points
HN discussionAnvil has basically created VB6 for the web but uses Python for the code-behind-the-forms. It can't do everything, but on the surface looks like a pretty valiant effort: https://anvil.works/
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on “The Return of the 90s Web”Submitted Make the world a better place? Remove some JavaScript from it as a story · 32 points
HN discussionThis is exactly what we're aiming for with https://anvil.works . We have a components+properties model, driven in Python, which gets translated to HTML+JS+CSS. We also have a visual editor, and abstractions over a bunch of the client-server stuff that's typically icky on the Web. The challenge of such a system is that the web platform is so huge and sprawling, and constantly growing - and all of it's written in JS/H…
Comment linking /
on “Vue.js vs. React”Submitted Raspberry Pi 4: Finally Fast Enough for a Web IDE as a story · 8 points
HN discussionHave a look at https://anvil.works -it's a drag and drop web app creator using python for front and backend. It's as close to Delphi for the modern age as I've come across.
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on “IDEs we had 30 years ago”Submitted Show HN: Anvil, Visual Basic reimagined for the web as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI am a bit frustrated that I don't have a great "tool" environment to build out this stuff, because of having to futz with the I/O. Like most of that stuff is "well I know how to write the Python to do the last step, but wrapping it all up in a simple web UI is Too Much Work". That effort might be small, but it's still orders of magnitude larger than the snippet! Lots of TUI interfaces try to approximate this, but I…
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on “Everything I built with Claude Artifacts this week”Submitted Anvil: A Drag-and-drop web app builder with Python as a story · 6 points
HN discussionAnvil | Developer at Large | Cambridge, UK | Onsite Anvil is a platform for building full-stack web apps with nothing but Python. We’re looking for a developer with good communications skills to help people build awesome things with Anvil. We were on the front page yesterday ("I love this"; "Super cool", "Can't wait to try it"): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16728706 Our customers range from tiny startups to…
Comment linking /jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2018)”Submitted How many T-shirts do I need for a developer conference? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionAnvil | Cambridge, UK (London OK) | Onsite, Full-time/Part-time/Flexible | https://anvil.works Anvil is a platform for building full-stack web apps with nothing but Python. We’re looking for Employee #1: a developer with good communications skills to help people build awesome things with Anvil. HN called us “amazing”, “just what we need, in the language we need”, and “really really cool”. Our customers range from in…
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on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2018)”Submitted Python widgets in HTML layouts as a story · 5 points
HN discussionAnvil | Cambridge, UK (London OK) | Onsite, Full-time/Part-time/Flexible | https://anvil.works/jobs Anvil is a platform for building full-stack web apps with nothing but Python. We’re looking for a developer with good communications skills to help people build awesome things with Anvil. In our last HN thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16728706 ), we were called "super cool", "absolutely amazing", and "[w…
Comment linking /jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2018)”Submitted Why Python in the Browser Isn't Enough as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI'm experimenting with Anvil[0] at the moment. It's a bit like a web version of Delphi or Visual Basic. You build everything in Python. The front end stuff gets compiled to JavaScript. You can publish your app in a click. There is a built in database service, authentication and integrations with Google docs. It has a lot of potential. [0]: https://anvil.works
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on “Ask HN: What's your favorite way of getting a web app up quickly in 2018?”Submitted Building Business Dashboards as a story · 4 points
HN discussionWe do exactly that! ( https://anvil.works/blog/anvil-on-site ) Installing and running it is typically a single 'docker-compose' command. If you're interested in this option, please do drop us an email at sales@anvil.works.
Comment linking /blog/anvil-on-site
on “Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python”Submitted Anvil: Full stack web apps with nothing but Python as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI'd take the other side of that bet ;) Anvil's built in "Users" service is incredibly simple and un-magical (user records are just database rows, and you can reimplement vanilla password login in four lines). This makes hacking on it an awful lot easier than some magically injected extension that needs to be configured just so . (Check out the API: https://anvil.works/doc#users )
Comment linking /doc
on “Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python”Submitted Introspection in Python – Python objects speak for themselves as a story · 3 points
HN discussionYes, it can! Check out the "Secure download portal" example app at https://anvil.works/learn#examples - it's got group-based access control. (Nothing magic - it's just a database. Even user records are just table rows, so you can link or categorise them however you like!)
Comment linking /learn
on “Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python”Submitted How I Built Calendly in 3 Hours as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
