# 9front

26 Hacker News commenters recommended 9front and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Plan 9 fork that people recommend for its simple, modular design and how fun it is to tinker with; critics point to missing modern browser and video acceleration.

## Why people recommend it

- Simple, fun design for hackers (7 comments): "IMO 9front is an exposé of what an OS can look like when it's written for and by hackers with a focus on simplicity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49157394)) "Most Unix diehard hackers will be at 9front today because of the ease of thinkering, simplicity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400324)) "9front is a legitimately cool software project and from what I can tell a cool set of people" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46820875))
- Namespaces and modular 9P design (9 comments): "it was basically made to be modular from day one and you can just set a CPU server and connect anything into it over 9p" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074909)) "Namespaces in 9front (actual ones, not second hand ones like under Linux) makes isolating software trivial." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628195)) "With 9front and namespaces/separate servers you get a similar environment but even more modular." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400751))
- Portable, still supports 32-bit (4 comments): "Thankfully they are also tinkering with 9front which has little to no issues with portability and still supports 32 bit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047750)) "they are also tinkering with 9front which has little to no issues with portability and still supports 32 bit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047742)) "9front which has little to no issues with portability and still supports 32 bit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047663))
- Fast builds and self-contained install (4 comments): "This creates a zero dependency environment as well as shakes out bugs and shortcomings in foundational software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49742905)) "I just measured and built the latest 9front AMD64 kernel in 15.4 seconds using a Celeron J1900 with a SATA SSD." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838275)) "it takes 5 minutes to setup. Plus it's all built in so you don't need to install anything" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48050360))

## What people warn about

- No modern browser or video acceleration (2 comments): "the blocker is the lack of a modern browser and a lack of video acceleration" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670614)) "the lack of a modern browser and video acceleration is a pretty hard blocker" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46820515))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Windows](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows.md): 1287 recommend
- [macOS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macos.md): 1041 recommend
- [Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/linux.md): 745 recommend
- [Haiku](https://hackerapproved.com/p/haiku-os.md): 115 recommend
- [NetBSD](https://hackerapproved.com/p/netbsd.md): 100 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "9front", https://hackerapproved.com/p/9front/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).