Ask HN: Would you pay for a UI framework?

I might if it's a one-time payment and not a subscription service. However, these days before I choose something I base my decision not only on the actual merits of a given product/project, but also on its popularity. Like it or not, if there is a large user base, everything is easier (on average), from documentation to support. If you can replicate that and convince users you're a viable choice and unlikely to disappear soon, you have better chances. I'm not going to invest my time in learning and using a product that might get abandoned next year, and if it's not open source I'm really screwed up then.

It depends on how much the framework costs. I spent 3 years of my career using Sencha ExtJs[0], a framework you could use commercially by paying a license. I was in India back then, and could not afford the license to use it for personal projects I hoped to turn into a side business. By the time I came to the US, they changed their pricing model so that you now needed to buy a 5-pack license to be able to use it.

There is a lot to like (and a little to dislike) about the Sencha family of frameworks, but the licensing alone made me look at alternatives inspite of being familiar with it.

[0]: https://www.sencha.com/

I think that as there are quite a few decent quality free frameworks, the paid-for alternatives have to offer something extraordinary. This is exacerbated by the fact that community support and shared code/instructional blog posts will be harder to come by.

I would say don't try to do everything. A lot of frameworks - bootstrap, WordPress, etc start off quite well, then become extremely tedious because they try to be too powerful. I've stopped building "responsive" altogether and just go for simpler websites that look good on both web and mobile.

But I would pay for components.

I would pay for form validation for example. Or something that makes data and chart look good on a touchscreen. Just don't force me to take everything else bundled with it.

There are dozens of such frameworks already... how do you differentiate?

Such a framework would need to be extremely flexible in order to really support _all_ use cases.

There are already a plethora of fly-by-night Javascript frameworks. Outside of hobby projects, I'd wager that most people prefer not to use frameworks that lack an established track record. For a business, the cost of switching frameworks after the fact is simply too great. Unless the framework has a sizable userbase and has been around for a few years, I wouldn't use it in any serious projects. To get a large enough userbase that people will feel comfortable using it in serious projects, you're going to need them to use your framework in those hobby projects. However, those projects are the least likely to have a budget, and the most likely to utilize free resources. This is why I do not think a commercial framework can succeed.

By default I'm very reluctant to use proprietary libraries because I would have to invest time into learning something that I can't use freely in future projects, and I might even expose myself to some kind of risk of patent infringement or something.

Basically, if there's no freely available way to do what I want, I really prefer to come up with such a solution myself, so that I can then use that in my hobbies, nonprofit projects, etc.

I would be more likely to consider it if there were clear licensing terms that allow use in open source or nonprofit projects.

We already pay for inspinia here. It's great. I think the business is legit.

You just need to make a very good brand for it and be able to show people that they need it. Once they use it, they'll see that they are getting something better than the bootstraps that you can find(which is still great, but for a professional project you might need something extra).

Also, work on your pricing. Maybe sell a basic version with the option to pay for the (very expensive, hard to maintain) components separately.

Thank you all for very valuable feedback.

For those who seem interested, you can find more about our product at https://cxjs.io.

It's free for non-commercial use. We would be very happy to assist you to start using it, either for a hobby or a business application.