Boehm GC
Shares rank 3 of 4 garbage collectors by recommenders
Free library that adds automatic memory management to existing C and C++ programs with minimal changes. Critics say its conservative scanning is slow, especially with large heaps.
Free library that adds automatic memory management to existing C and C++ programs with minimal changes. Critics say its conservative scanning is slow, especially with large heaps.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Drop-in automatic memory management for C/C++
“you can just replace your #include. Cutting-edge automatic memory management forever.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “D Programming Language” “makes any random C/C++ program not only still work but also run faster”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “Notes by djb on using Fil-C” Long-term use by experienced developers
“I write a lot of my C/C++ code using Boehm GC, have my own libraries designed knowing GC is there”
Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “A Note on Fil-C” “I've been using Boehm GC with my C/C++ programs for decades”
Comment from 18 Apr 2026 in “A simplified model of Fil-C”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow because it scans too much memory
“Boehm is a conservative GC so when it triggers it needs to scan a lot more memory for pointers than .NET's GC”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “Unity's Mono problem: Why your C# code runs slower than it should” “which is notorious to be slow, since it is a conservative GC”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “I'm building a clarity-first language (compiles to C++)” Production problems with large heaps
“Its biggest downside was the use of Boehm GC that had some issues with large heaps.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “JEP 544: Ahead-of-Time Code Compilation” “using Boehm in production is the worst of all worlds”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Gossamer: a Rust-flavoured language with real goroutines and pause-free memory”
Other garbage collectors people recommend
The three most recommended other garbage collectors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZGC garbage collector | 17 | 7 | 71% | 10 | — | Approved |
| G1 garbage collector | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
| Boehm GCThis page | 5 | 5 | 50% | 4 | — | — |
| Parallel GC (OpenJDK) | 5 | 2 | 71% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it seems very Boehm specific and yes quite uesless”
“Boehm has taken so much mindshare since it's lacking in many respects and has given GC's a bad reputation”
“Its biggest downside was the use of Boehm GC that had some issues with large heaps.”
“using Boehm in production is the worst of all worlds”
“I've been using Boehm GC with my C/C++ programs for decades”
“which is notorious to be slow, since it is a conservative GC”
“you can just replace your #include. Cutting-edge automatic memory management forever.”
“Boehm is a conservative GC so when it triggers it needs to scan a lot more memory for pointers than .NET's GC”
“because it is using the Boehm GC”
“I write a lot of my C/C++ code using Boehm GC, have my own libraries designed knowing GC is there”
“makes any random C/C++ program not only still work but also run faster”
“it's been useful in leak detection mode on occasion”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.