# Desmos

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Desmos and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free browser-based graphing tool people use to explore math concepts; critics find its interface clunky on touch screens.

## Why people recommend it

- Visualizing math concepts and graphs (4 comments): "incredibly useful to use Desmos or Manim to explain certain mathematical concepts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613593)) "A visualisation/exploration of some math concept in Desmos can be invaluable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334358)) "Desmos etc were incredibly valuable for unlocking certain concepts." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615232))
- Preferred over other graphing tools (4 comments): "Thankfully as of this year there is also a Desmos option" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47991570)) "we have mostly moved onto Desmos (graphing calculator)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865169)) "there are better graphing tools anyway, like Desmos" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47981316))
- Free, fast browser-based graphing (2 comments): "Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481157)) "It's free, it's fast, and it does most of what you need." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47982500))

## What people warn about

- Clunky interface, hard on touch screens (2 comments): "this means you have to fiddle with a popover window and can't always see the full problem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47980812)) "the clunkiness of using the UI of something like Desmos (especially on a touch-screen)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873203))
- Early use may stop skill building (1 comments): "Using Desmos too early would've prevented building these skills." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619938))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Texas Instruments TI-84 Evo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ti-84-evo.md): 41 recommend
- [TI-89 calculator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ti-89-calculator.md): 31 recommend
- [TI-83 Plus](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ti-83-calculator.md): 21 recommend
- [TI-85 calculator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ti-85-calculator.md): 11 recommend
- [HP 50G](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hp-50g.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

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