⚠️ Does Streamlit oversimplify web development for learners?

Hey Streamlit community :waving_hand:,

I’ve been using Streamlit for a while and really appreciate how fast it lets you build data apps. But I’ve started wondering—does its simplicity come at a cost for those trying to learn proper web development?

Streamlit abstracts away a lot of the frontend/backend complexity. While that’s great for productivity, it might not be ideal for learners who want to understand:

  • :brick: How HTML, CSS, and JS work together

  • :atom_symbol: How React or other frameworks manage state and components

  • :wrench: How backend routing, APIs, and databases are structured

And from a career perspective, I see a few potential drawbacks:

  • :prohibited: Limited exposure to industry-standard stacks: Most web dev jobs expect experience with frameworks like React, Node.js, Django, etc.

  • :chart_decreasing: Fewer transferable skills: Streamlit’s model doesn’t teach you how to structure scalable apps, manage authentication, or handle deployment pipelines.

  • :mouse_trap: Risk of over-reliance: If someone builds only with Streamlit, they might struggle when asked to contribute to a traditional frontend/backend codebase.

  • :building_construction: Not suitable for full-scale platforms: Streamlit is great for internal tools, prototypes, and dashboards—but if you’re aiming to build a large-scale, multi-user platform with complex logic, Streamlit isn’t the right fit.

That said, Streamlit is amazing for quick iterations and data-centric apps. I’m just curious how others balance its ease with the need for deeper technical growth.

I Would love to hear your thoughts, comment down your opinion on this…

Disclaimer: This post is based on my personal experience and learning journey. I understand that others may have different perspectives or use cases where Streamlit fits perfectly. I’m here to learn from all of you!

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Hi @ansh_kunwar !

I think that the goal of streamlit is not learning web frontend developers skills. I prefer consider it as a web GUI for python. The step from code to UI is often an hassel.

Most of GUI are running client side. (Tkinter, wxWidgets, Kivy, Qt, etc…) and you have to reinstall it after each change in code.

Streamlit offers a simple and powerfull “GUI in a browser”, that can run on numerous screen sizes, on differents OS, with no OS stores restrictions, no needs to deploy something on each client.

Streamlit is not a tortuous web development : It stays pythonic and clever. I have coded a lot of utilities for different jobs (in C, Vb3/5/6, PHP/FI, php3 +, python + tkinter) and at this time, streamlit remains mainly my favorite choice.

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Thanks for the detailed reply! I completely agree—Streamlit shines as a Pythonic way to build browser-based GUIs without the usual frontend hassle. What I was trying to highlight is that while Streamlit lets you build web apps, it doesn’t teach or expose you to core web dev skills needed to build full-scale platforms. Definitely, Streamlit is brilliant for rapid development and for medium level projects—but it’s not a full-stack framework to go full scale platforms.

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On the one hand, Streamlit is useful for those who want to avoid actually coding the frontend as you normally would. You avoid having to develop the components and making them all work together in the app. Streamlit abstracts a lot of that away. So I would not say Streamlit is for those looking to learn frontend technologies.

On the other hand, I got into React because of Streamlit. In an effort to create a custom component that I wanted, I started learning React. Its not my first javascript framework, but it definitely became my favorite for a while. I now have at least 2 years of experience with React and I am still working with it today. Because I liked a lot of things in React and I like the concept of signals, I also ended up learning Solid as well. So Streamlit helped me branch out and develop other frontend skills.

So it really depends on you. Streamlit can help you avoid having to use Javascript and React (or other framework etc) or it could lead you to it.

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