Sorry for the double post, but I would also like to add that SQLAlchemy and Mako templates were more of a deciding factor than anything else for me to use pylons. Pick the things that you will absolutely not be reinventing (templates, orm, etc) and find where they play best together. Do you like your templates simple and with very little logic? do you like them in xml? do you like 'magic' orms? Also another thing is note how this app will be deployed. If it is purely for fun and learning, this isn't an issue. Otherwise, read up on how easily different frameworks play with apache mod_python, fcgi, scgi, etc. because limitations in that area aren't easily mended. I did have to wage a bloody war to get pylons running fcgi on my shared hosting server. Now the war is won the solution really isn't that hard/complicated or obscure. It was just lack of good documentation that needlessly killed hours and brain-cells. I'd recommend looking for as much documentation in these areas. If you can't find it fairly quickly, chances are you will be paying for it in the future.