Imba – I have spent 7 years creating a programming language for the web
Hey all My name is Sindre, and I am the CTO of Scrimba (YC S20). For the last 7 years, I have written all my web apps in a full-stack programming language called Imba. It compiles to JavaScript and its main goal is to make web developers more productive. I just launched a major overhaul of Imba, so I wanted to share it here on HN, in case anyone are interested in learning more about it. It is very opinionated, so some of you might not like it, but I would love to hear anyones feedback regardless. Constructive criticism appreciated! The backstory: Imba initially started in 2012 as an effort…
In plain words
Imba is a full-stack programming language that compiles to JavaScript, designed to improve web developer productivity. Created by Sindre, CTO of Scrimba, it combines Ruby-like elegance with tight DOM integration and draws inspiration from React and Tailwind. The language has been used to build business-critical applications over several years and has undergone a major overhaul to enhance its capabilities for web development.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey all My name is Sindre, and I am the CTO of Scrimba (YC S20). For the last 7 years, I have written all my web apps in a full-stack programming language called Imba. It compiles to JavaScript and its main goal is to make web developers more productive. I just launched a major overhaul of Imba, so I wanted to share it here on HN, in case anyone are interested in learning more about it. It is very opinionated, so some of you might not like it, but I would love to hear anyones feedback regardless. Constructive criticism appreciated! The backstory: Imba initially started in 2012 as an effort to bring the elegance and conciseness of Ruby into the browser, and also because I felt that JavaScript and the DOM should be more tightly coupled together. Over the years, I have taken inspiration from React/JSX, and also Tailwind. Since 2013, I have built several business-critical apps in Imba, so this is not a toy project or an academic exercise, it is extracted from a real project trying to solve real problems. Today, we are currently a small but passionate community of devs who use Imba all over the world. The nitty-gritty details: As mentioned, Imba compiles to JavaScript, and it works on both the frontend and backend. The quickest way to get a feeling of how it works is by checking out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XS5q9xhaMc Alternatively, here is a list of the main benefits of the language: * Clean syntax with built-in tags and inline styles * Imba's Memoized DOM approach is *an order of magnitude* faster than Virtual DOMs (Vue, React). Learn more here: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-virtual-dom-is-slow-me... * Imba works with Node and the npm ecosystem, and integrates tightly with both JS and TypeScript * Blazing-fast dev/build tools based on esbuild Each of the benefits above are explained more thoroughly in our docs here, so please check it out if any of the above points spark your interest: https://imba.io With this version I feel that I am very close to my vision for what Imba should be. In other words; it is finally ready for public consumption. I'd wholeheartedly advice you to look into it and give it a whirl if you are interested in web development :) Hope you like it, and please share any feedback you might have in the comments! PS! We're also hiring Imba developers at Scrimba - see https://jobs.scrimba.com/. We don't expect you to be a seasoned Imba developer, but we expect you to pick it up fast :)
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