Ask HN: Which Go web framework should i use in 2016? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which Go web framework should i use in 2016?

3 pointsMooty6 comments

Hi HN !

I am currently searching for an alternative to PHP with Go but I cannot find any advice on which go framework could be as great as Symfony or Laravel. Can anyone help me find the next big thing ?

Matt Loye

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Matt, there a tons of frameworks at different levels.

There are ones like Beego (https://beego.me/docs/intro/) that others have mentioned that have all the batteries included.

Others like Gin (https://github.com/gin-gonic/gin) that have a lot built in and offer an stable API and good performance.

Gorilla (http://www.gorillatoolkit.org/) offers pieces you tie together but are at a lower level of abstraction.

If you use the standard library, you have to build a little bit more, but you do not have to deal with dependencies or changes in 3rd party APIs.

Another one that has gotten quite mature in the Go space is Beego: https://beego.me/

There is even a fairly good book on using Beego to develop web apps with Go. https://astaxie.gitbooks.io/build-web-application-with-golan...

First question I would ask is do you really need a web framework? With Go, the way language is built or designed - you don't need crazy frameworks. Having said that I do use gorilla package a lot to re-use some of the common middlewares and packages which wouldn't make sense to re-write. But, for API endpoints and all that I am directly using Go.

You don't need crazy frameworks in any language. However I think about the things different frameworks give me. Generation of database migrations and other standard elements, an ORM and/or query DSL so my SQL code can be more DRY, a community with a shared code base so that I don't have to rediscover every solution or rewrite everything for my particular use case, and additional domain knowledge that is transferable to other projects/companies so that I can be immediately productive.

I mean I like Go, and I understand that layer of abstraction can be frustrating, especially in a typed language, but that layer of abstraction can also be incredibly useful.

I don't know whether those are high level frameworks, but if they are, a Go equivalent is probably Revel [1]

1. https://revel.github.io/

If you are looking for a "framework" in the php/rails mode go is likely not a great fit.

The best I can point to would be Gorilla.

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