The best online communities, according to hackers
5 online communities were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one, and 3 earn the Hacker Approved badge.
Top picks
The three most recommended online communities with the badge. Each figure is 2 people. RecommendsCriticizes One comment
Cozy, retro, nostalgic BBS atmosphere
Recommended as a small, friendly terminal chat hangout for developers, reached by running ssh late.sh. Common caveat: the low-contrast, text-heavy design is hard to read.
Fond memories of its golden age
A free community site for Flash games, animation, music and art, loved for its creative, rowdy early-2000s spirit. Some user-made games are poor, and it can take up a lot of time.
Fast, useful source of information
People recommend it as a fast place to follow open-weight models, local setups and reproducible experiments. The most common caveat is hype and noise.
All 5 online communities, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | late.sh | 31 | 11 | 74% | 6 | — | Approved |
| 2 | Newgrounds | 30 | 1 | 97% | 8 | — | Approved |
| 3 | r/LocalLLaMA | 20 | 3 | 87% | 9 | — | Approved |
| 4 | Facebook Groups | 17 | 11 | 61% | 8 | — | — |
| 5 | r/BuyItForLife | 6 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same online community in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to online communities that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.