Dhall
Ranked 5 of 9 configuration languages by recommenders
People recommend it as a configuration language that sits between plain JSON and a full programming language, with refactors that keep identical hashes.
People recommend it as a configuration language that sits between plain JSON and a full programming language, with refactors that keep identical hashes.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Middle ground between JSON and programming
“It seems to sit at a sweet spot between "just JSON, no programming convenience at all" and "full-blown programming language with nontrivial toolchain"”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “CSS now has an if() conditional function” “CUE, Dhall, and Jsonnet are doing more or less the right thing, but they are a tad large.”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Things I don't like in configuration languages” “looking like full-blown programming languages is a feature”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Things I don't like in configuration languages” Behavior-preserving refactors keep identical hashes
“In Dhall, most behavior preserving refactors produce the exact same hash code so you can know”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: RealDiff – runtime behavior diffing for pull requests (six languages)” “has this kind of guarantee as one of its nicest features”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: RealDiff – runtime behavior diffing for pull requests (six languages)”
Other configuration languages people recommend
The four most recommended other configuration languages, 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.
See all 9 configuration languages, rankedWhat people said
9 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“any of the ones you list are fine though and a vast improvement on using Go templates for it”
“advertised as a feature (see Dhall configuration language)”
“In Dhall, most behavior preserving refactors produce the exact same hash code so you can know”
“has this kind of guarantee as one of its nicest features”
“They work well when did to generate static config from some dynamic input generated by regular program.”
“I wouldn't group xaml in the same category as dhall for example.”
“It seems to sit at a sweet spot between "just JSON, no programming convenience at all" and "full-blown programming language with nontrivial toolchain"”
“CUE, Dhall, and Jsonnet are doing more or less the right thing, but they are a tad large.”
“looking like full-blown programming languages is a feature”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.