Chrome DevTools
Browser developer tools in Developer tools
Free, built-in browser tools for inspecting pages, editing CSS and debugging JavaScript. Critics report slowness, crashes on large data and intrusive messages.
Free, built-in browser tools for inspecting pages, editing CSS and debugging JavaScript. Critics report slowness, crashes on large data and intrusive messages.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Edits CSS and saves to files
“The Chrome tool where you can edit CSS inside the inspect panel and it writes it to the CSS file is amazing”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “New Safari developer tools provide insight into CSS Grid Lanes” “Change to workspace and add the folder where your project lives.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Launch HN: JSX Tool (YC F25) – A Browser Dev-Panel IDE for React” Strong JavaScript debugging and breakpoints
“Chrome dev tools, especially around JS are just better.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “New Safari developer tools provide insight into CSS Grid Lanes” “allows breakpoints in the Chrome debugger”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Removing XSLT for a more secure browser” Useful AI assistance for analysis
“In a few seconds it had analysed all the minified sources of the website”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “elect.horse” “The AI assistance in Chrome dev tools is really useful.”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent” Preferred over other debugging tools
“Chrome DevTools are as good or better than my experience in C/C++”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “The web runs on tolerance” “Chrome dev tools, especially around JS are just better.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “New Safari developer tools provide insight into CSS Grid Lanes”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow or crashing on large data
“It's also been ridiculously slow for a month or two now”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Zero-day CSS: CVE-2026-2441 exists in the wild” “Even chrome dev tools crash hard on large WS Messages.”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Wirebrowser – A JavaScript debugger with breakpoint-driven heap search” Quirks with network captures
“Chrome was being weird and not showing me any data from inside the fiddle iframe”
Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “We deserve a better streams API for JavaScript” “there's been a lot of quirks with network captures through devtools”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Craft Chrome Devtools Protocol (CDP) commands with new command editor” Intrusive, unhelpful messages
“the intrusiveness and general lack of utility or consideration is certainly irritating”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla” “The message in the dev tools is, at least for Chrome, extremely developer unfriendly”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “Developers don't understand CORS (2019)” “They have no idea what I'm doing or trying to accomplish before I have pressed a key”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Google Chrome Developer Tools: AI Powered Suggestions”
What people recommend instead
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome DevToolsThis page | 20 | 12 | 63% | 10 | — | — |
| Firefox Developer Tools | 9 | 3 | 75% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
31 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“In a few seconds it had analysed all the minified sources of the website”
“it figured the whole thing out in about a half hour”
“The web inspector is often overlooked.”
“If you want to see it for yourself”
“Even DevTools doesn't pop up a keyboard when you type.”
“The message in the dev tools is, at least for Chrome, extremely developer unfriendly”
“The AI assistance in Chrome dev tools is really useful.”
“I always wind up back in Chrome to debug things.”
“both have a great user interface”
“Chrome has really good performance benchmarking tools.”
“Chrome was being weird and not showing me any data from inside the fiddle iframe”
“Devs want Chrome DevTools and Chrome runtime.”
“It's also been ridiculously slow for a month or two now”
“that one is only really useful for small tweaks, even just adding new properties is already pretty frustrating experience”
“Browser dev tools help devs build an accurate mental model of what their software is doing.”
“Chrome dev tools, especially around JS are just better.”
“The Chrome tool where you can edit CSS inside the inspect panel and it writes it to the CSS file is amazing”
“That actually catches me out pretty frequently if I forget I moved focus.”
“Definitely look into both chrome or firefox, their tooling is great.”
“I was usually able to get a hold of someone from teams I needed from Chrome DevTools”
“to do the same thing on your browser”
“Even chrome dev tools crash hard on large WS Messages.”
“Chrome DevTools are as good or better than my experience in C/C++”
“And the worst thing is LLM in the inspector.”
“They have no idea what I'm doing or trying to accomplish before I have pressed a key”
“This, paired with chrome devtools and playwright, had been a real productivity booster for me, and is quite fun.”
“there's been a lot of quirks with network captures through devtools”
“the intrusiveness and general lack of utility or consideration is certainly irritating”
“Change to workspace and add the folder where your project lives.”
“which is complete really a bulk of stuff”
“allows breakpoints in the Chrome debugger”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.