None of the existing answers seem particularly convincing to me. Here's how I have chosen: pick the framework that is most popular with the people you want to w

None of the existing answers seem particularly convincing to me. Here's how I have chosen: pick the framework that is most popular with the people you want to work with, projects you want to work on, or companies you want to work at. If you're building simple websites for clients (publishers, small business owners, etc.), PHP is probably still the best choice, and usually Wordpress. It runs with no config on standard web hosting platforms and you mustn't underestimate the power of the Wordpress plugin ecosystem + the fact that most people are comfortable with Wordpress. If you're building more advanced websites (not web-apps) for clients, Django is a great choice, in large part because it has an excellent drop-in admin panel, but also there's a ton of third party apps available. Ruby is also a good choice for this, having an even more solid ecosystem. That said, Ruby is trending down, Python is trending up. Also, hipsters are now learning node.js and nearly everyone who went to engineering school knows Python. Hipster savants are learning Go, Clojure, Haskell, and Scala (in order). Who do you want to work with? node was built with event-driven apps in mind. In other words, it's for web apps. It would be unwise to build a traditional website with node unless you have a particular reason to. Same with Go, Clojure, Haskell, and Scala. If you want to work at a cool startup, you won't do yourself a disservice learning node. If you want to work at a cool startup doing more hardcore stuff (think Firebase or Cloudfront), you wouldn't do yourself a disservice learning Go or Clojure. If you want an all-around framework and to broaden your skills, go with Ruby or Python. If you're more of a hipster (aesthetics, web-only) then choose Ruby. If you're more of an engineer (academic, data science), choose Python. Another perspective on Ruby: Rails skills will be in demand for maintaining old code-bases for awhile into the future, even if it's declining in relative popularity.