# Dialyzer

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Dialyzer and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a useful part of Elixir and Erlang tooling for quick feedback loops. Critics say it rarely catches what the compiler misses and that checks can be slow.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong part of Elixir tooling (2 comments): "The tooling for inspecting and enforcing style (tidewave, credo, dialyzer, Dan's "vibe" ecosystem tools) is far beyond what I see in other ecosystems" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48287224)) "The combination of credo, dialyzer, and tidewave means you have an iterative feedback loop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46930925))

## What people warn about

- Not enough type safety (4 comments): "I would spend way too much time fighting types in elixir with dialyzer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399788)) "The lack of types is not fixed by having a type spec and dialyzer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543831)) "I would have loved something a bit more complex than dialyzer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48396143))
- Rarely catches what compiler misses (2 comments): "as the compiler usually catches things before Dialyzer would as it's not built into the compiler" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48398420)) "I haven't had it catch something before the compiler in a while." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48398507))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [zizmor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zizmor.md): 19 recommend
- [Semgrep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/semgrep.md): 14 recommend
- [clang-tidy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clang-tidy.md): 14 recommend
- [PHPStan](https://hackerapproved.com/p/phpstan.md): 11 recommend
- [SonarQube](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sonarqube.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

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