Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Hancho – A simple and pleasant build system in ~500 lines of Python
Hi HN, I've been taking a break from my big side projects to work on a smaller side project - a tiny build system that's based on what I've learned from using Ninja and ad-hoc Python for my homebrew build systems over the last few years. It's basically a promise-based dependency graph runner plus a simple text templating engine, and it works quite well for the smallish projects I've tried it out on so far. If you find Make crufty, CMake inconsistent, Ninja verbose, and Bazel just too much build system, give Hancho a try. Don't like one of Hancho's defaults? It's only 500 lines - hack it up…
Hancho is a lightweight build system written in approximately 500 lines of Python that combines a promise-based dependency graph runner with a simple text templating engine. It is designed for developers working on… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier. Hancho – A simple and pleasant build system in ~500 lines of Python launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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A few weeks ago I saw a post about someone converting an entire C++ codebase to Rust using AI in under two weeks. That inspired me — if AI can rewrite a whole language stack that fast, I wanted to try building a programming language from scratch with AI assistance. I've also been noticing growing global interest in Korean language and culture, and I wondered: what would a programming language look like if every keyword was in Hangul (the Korean writing system)? Han is the result. It's a statically-typed language written in Rust with a full compiler pipeline (lexer → parser → AST →…
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hey everyone! We're Evan and Caelean, the authors of Tach. Tach lets you visualize the architecture of your Python codebase, and gives you the tools to incrementally improve it. It uses module boundaries to give teams the benefits of microservices without the deployment complexity. If your code has been getting tangled up as your team and codebase grows, Tach helps you move back in the right direction, incrementally and quickly. You can use Tach to incrementally adopt a "modular monolith" architecture [1], for better local reasoning and smoother feature development. Since our last Show HN…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I love C and C++, but setting up projects can sometimes be a pain. Every time I wanted to start something new I'd spend the first hour writing CMakeLists.txt, figuring out find_package, copying boilerplate from my last project, and googling why my library isn't linking. By the time the project was actually set up I'd lost all momentum. So, I built Craft - a lightweight build and workflow tool for C and C++. Instead of writing CMake, your project configuration goes in a simple craft.toml: [project] name = "my_app" version = "0.1.0" language = "c" c_standard = 99 [build] type = "executable"…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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a lightweight web framework in c. Contribute to ashtonjamesd/lavandula development by creating an account on GitHub.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I've developed Django Ninja CRUD, a tool to simplify CRUD operations in Django by leveraging Django Ninja's strengths. It aims to make CRUD operations more intuitive, modular, and efficient, especially for large-scale projects. Key aspects: - Declarative, intuitive CRUD operations. - Modular approach with composition-over-inheritance. - Enhanced testing capabilities for robust applications. The tool is designed to transform Django development workflows, improving efficiency and maintainability. Read more about the development, features and roadmap here:…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Bake, A build system for building, testing and running C & C++ projects - SanderMertens/bake
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I am happy to announce my minimalist zero-dependency web framework, Minum, is out of beta. http://github.com/byronka/minum You will be hard-pressed to find another modern project as obsessively minimalistic. Other frameworks will claim simplicity and minimalism and then, casually, mention they are built on a multitude of libraries. This follows self-imposed constraints, predicated on a belief that smaller and lighter is long-term better. Caveat emptor: This is a project by and for developers who know and like programming (rather than, let us say, configuring). It is…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Simple, lightweight, and magic-free static site/blog generator for Python coders - sunainapai/makesite
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Tach is a pip package that lets you define module boundaries, automatically detect all cross-module dependencies, and then validate and enforce those dependencies. It also supports strict interfaces for modules by overloading `__all__`. The core static analysis is done in Rust, so all Tach commands run quickly. The goal of Tach is to help eng teams maintain velocity while scaling quickly, something we've seen break down a number of times. Give it a try!
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Copper is an operating system for robots - build, run, and replay your entire robot deterministically. - Home · copper-project/copper-rs Wiki
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I’m excited to share about Mesop - a new, open-source Python UI framework that enables Python developers to quickly build delightful web apps in a scalable way. A small team of us at Google have been developing Mesop as an unofficial 20% project for the past few months. A wide range of research and product teams at Google have been using it to rapidly build internal apps and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback internally so now we’re looking to get feedback from the open-source community. We think that Mesop provides a unique approach to building web UIs in Python - making it both easy…
2024 · google.github.io · its alternatives →
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Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hello, this is Edgar! We are open sourcing nix-ninja, an incremental build system for Nix that leverages dynamic derivations. For those unfamiliar, Nix is a powerful package manager and build system that ensures reproducible builds via strict dependency isolation. However, one of its limitations has been that it builds packages as monolithic units - if you change one source file, Nix rebuilds the entire package from scratch. nix-ninja solves this by bringing compilation unit level granularity to Nix builds. It targets ninja build files, a format for describing build graphs output by popular…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! I've been working with Go for the last 5+ years at large-ish companies building products that many of you may use regularly. A ton of people say that Go's standard library is really powerful and usually enough to get by without external dependencies. I think that's true for companies that have the resources to build and maintain packages to reduce code duplication. For everyone else, we're left to finding the right set of packages to build our projects. So, I built Copper - a toolkit that helps you get your project off the ground with minimal dependencies. It covers everything from…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Robyn is a high-performance async Python web framework powered by a Rust runtime. Build fast, scalable web applications with Python's simplicity and Rust's speed.
2025 · robyn.tech · its alternatives →
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This is a hobby project of mine that I started a few years ago to learn about programming language implementation. It was created 95% without AI, although a few recent commits include code from Gemini CLI. I started out following Crafting Interpreters, but gradually branched off that until I had almost nothing left in common. Tech stack: Rust, Cranelift (JIT compilation), LALRPOP (parser). Original title: "A small programming language where everything is a value" (edited based on comments)
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I've been working on Shelgon, a framework that lets you build your own custom REPL shells and interactive CLI applications in Rust. You can use Shelgon to: - Create a custom shell with only a few lines of code - Build interactive debugging tools with persistent state between commands - Develop domain-specific language interpreters with shell-like interfaces - Add REPL capabilities to existing applications Getting started is straightforward - implement a single trait that handles your command execution logic, and Shelgon takes care of the terminal UI, input handling, and async runtime…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! Silk is a project I began working on approximately six months ago without any prior experience or knowledge of compiler design, and it's been a frustrating but fun learning experience. It is very much a work in progress, but I would love to hear feedback of any kind!
2020 · ajaymt.github.io · its alternatives →
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2025 · mackow.ski · its alternatives →
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I built Copapy as an experiment: Can Python be used for hard real-time systems? Instead of an interpreter or JIT, Copapy builds a computation graph by tracing Python code and uses a custom copy-and-patch compiler. The result is very fast native code with no GC, no syscalls, and no memory allocations at runtime. The copy-and-patch compiler currently supports x86_64 as well as 32- and 64-bit ARM. It comes as small Python package with no other dependencies - no cross-compiler, nothing except Python. The current focus is on robotics and control systems in general. This project is early but…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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A Hacker News lookalike written in Python/Django, powering https://news.python.sc - sebst/pythonic-news
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
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The original askama repo, please go to https://github.com/askama-rs/askama - askama-rs/askama-old
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
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An experimental programming language for data flow - calebwin/pipelines
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Also compare
- Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust alternatives
- Tach – Visualize and untangle your Python codebase alternatives
- I built a Cargo-like build tool for C/C++ alternatives
- I built a web framework in C alternatives
- Django Ninja CRUD – Rethinking CRUD Operations in Django alternatives
- Bake – A modular build system and package manager for C/C++ alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →