# Conda 19 Hacker News commenters recommended Conda and 29 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People favor conda for handling non-Python binary dependencies and for reliably installing packages that just work. Critics say its solver is slow and can fail with unresolvable conflicts. ## Why people recommend it - Handles non-Python binary dependencies (4 comments): "conda is the "grand unifier", giving users 100% what they ask for artifacts-wise, albeit rather slowly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46486964)) "Conda on the other hand, with external binary dependencies, now we're talking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47447576)) "uv isn't a replacement since it cannot install those" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47446970)) - Things just work (3 comments): "I'm pretty happy with Conda. I just create a new environment and install on it. It normally works." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47452344)) "I switched to conda for those projects and... things just worked" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49754138)) "then all was well when I used conda instead" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433305)) - Correct solver, easy package management (2 comments): "People criticising conda's solver prove they haven't used it in years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399370)) "it had a correct solver, and it was easy to manage my own packages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49726937)) - Best option despite its faults (2 comments): "Honestly, they should be using conda (if they're working on their laptops)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400745)) "conda for all its faults is the best option for those in the" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46410234)) ## What people warn about - Slow dependency solving (5 comments): "Conda helped some but was always so slow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47441930)) "Conda builds can sometimes have issues with dependency resolution taking an unreasonable amount of time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47856398)) "moved very slow, struggled with complex dependency collisions, and took up a bunch of unnecessary space" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403211)) - Unresolvable dependency conflicts (4 comments): "The default strict priority can make your requirements unsatisfiable, even though there would be a version of each required package in the collection of channels." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45990798)) "It used to be bullet proof but there too you now get absolutely unsolvable circular dependencies" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46401375)) "For a while Conda seemed to have cracked this, but there too I now get unresolvable conflicts." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45990608)) - Breaks on scientific and bioinformatics stacks (3 comments): "projects with incomplete dependencies (installed through Conda, IIRC) which were a major pain to get working" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432609)) "Conda, and other stuff, just never worked smoothly with the bioinformatics code we were running." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49440519)) "Jupyter+conda/anaconda is almost always not installable and broken for most of its kernels" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46077019)) - Does not guarantee reproducible deployment (2 comments): "Conda offers only a partial resolution to this problem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48234433)) "Conda does not solve the problems of deployment and they don't have any reproducibility guarantees." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826131)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Nix](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nix.md): 378 recommend - [Homebrew](https://hackerapproved.com/p/homebrew.md): 271 recommend - [npm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/npm.md): 161 recommend - [pnpm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pnpm.md): 124 recommend - [Cargo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cargo.md): 123 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Conda", https://hackerapproved.com/p/conda/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).