# Babashka

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/babashka/

24 people recommended Babashka in Hacker News comments, 3 had mixed feelings and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 23 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for Clojure scripting from a single executable, with fast startup and a good standard library. Common caveat: it is memory hungry.

Summary written by Claude from 44 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 43 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Go-to tool for new projects (4 comments in the sample): "All of my new projects start as a single babashka script now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50178510)) "Babashka is my go-to tool for starting all new projects now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46435361)) "This release of Babashka fills beautifully that role for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060786))
- Replaces bash scripting (3 comments in the sample): "the dev experience of making these scripts is so much nicer than trying to write bash scripts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48950019)) "Babashka has replaced any kind of bash-scripting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49090395)) "Babashka has replaced bash-scripting for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48376262))
- Fast startup (3 comments in the sample): "I have many babashka shebang deployed scripts with fast startup." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445875)) "it starts in ~5-20ms instead of the usual JVM startup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47046244)) "For Clojure now there's Babashka: super quick." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445949))
- Simple and pragmatic (3 comments in the sample): "I find babashka packaging to be minimal and much more convenient than python for scripting." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446043)) "babashka in comparison is so much more pragmatic, simple and straightforward." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076885)) "For the little things Babashka tends to be even more straight forward." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624768))

## What people warn about

- Memory hungry (2 comments in the sample): "bb turned out to be a bit more ergonomic. Although impractically memory hungry." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593707)) "babashka adds ~200ms to cold start and can be pretty memory hungry" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377274))

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Babashka", https://hackerapproved.com/p/babashka/ (24 recommend, 3 mixed, 3 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.