Frequently Asked Questions

How are the different frameworks scored?

Each framework is scored by two separate measures, and these are simply averaged. The two measures are:

1. GitHub score: Based on the number of stars the git repository for a framework has on GitHub. Since Hotframeworks can't measure this for frameworks not on GitHub, you'll see 'N/A' for those.
2. Stack Overflow score: Based on the number of questions on Stack Overflow that are tagged with the name of the framework. Some frameworks don't have an unambiguous Stack Overflow tag, and have an 'N/A'.

Since these two measures of popularity are on different scales the final scores normalized to a scale of 0-100. The scores are on a log scale since the measures cover such a large range, so for instance a framework with a score of 90 for Stack Overflow may have thousands of questions while a framework with a score of 10-20 might just have a handful.

Why does my favorite framework have such a low score?

Since scores are simply calculated as an average of the two measures described in the previous question, you can investigate the individual scores as compared to other frameworks to see why your framework places where it does. With Github scores for instance, you can look at how many stars your framework has and compare it to frameworks with higher scores. If you still think something is wrong with the score after doing some investigation, please let us know.

Why isn't my favorite framework listed? It's so cool!

I'd love to hear about it. Just send a suggestion.

What are the criteria for deciding if something is a "web framework"?

As a rough guide, if you can finish the sentence "I just built this sweet new web application with [insert name of framework here]", then it'd probably be considered a web framework. Note that frameworks don't have to be "full-stack", they can be client-side only (like GWT ) or server-side only and qualify. Hotframeworks doesn't include JavaScript libraries like jQuery and MooTools though since these are typically used to enhance web applications that are built using another framework. Feel free to suggest we add a framework.