DigiKey
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 3 electronics distributors
Online distributor of electronic parts, valued for parametric search, large inventory and authentic components. Common caveat: captcha challenges on its site and costly shipping for some buyers.
Online distributor of electronic parts, valued for parametric search, large inventory and authentic components. Common caveat: captcha challenges on its site and costly shipping for some buyers.
29 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 23
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 79%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 23 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Strong parametric part search
“the parametric searches on digikey, mouser, etc are pretty good for the standard components”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Designing and assembling my first PCB” “Digikey is also that good for electronics parametric shopping.”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website” “Parts finding functionality of DigiKey is pretty darn good”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “"Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"” - Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Price Per Ball – Site that sorts golf balls on Amazon by price per ball”
Authentic, vetted genuine parts
“Counterfeits don't happen when you buy parts from reputable distributors (digikey, mouser, Newark, TTI, arrow, etc)”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts” “at least with Digikey, you can feel like you actually get the real part vs. some low end clone knockoff”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Converting a $3.88 analog clock from Walmart into a ESP8266-based Wi-Fi clock” “you still get really good vetting and high quality stuff”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick” - Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “We X-Rayed a Suspicious FTDI USB Cable”
Fast shipping, including international
“the parcel came around from the tiny village of Thief River Falls MN to rural Bavaria in less than 30 hours”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Designing and assembling my first PCB” “free shipping over 50eur and it'll arrive by DHL in less than 48hrs from the States”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Postal Arbitrage” Essential for hardware prototyping
“It's hard to overstate how screwed hardware design and prototyping would be if companies like digi-key went under.”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key)” “If we lost Digikey, Mouser, and AVNET, it would be catastrophic.”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Small U.S. town, big company. Can it weather the tariff Blizzard? (Digi-Key)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Frequent captcha and verification prompts
“I can't use DigiKey without getting silent CF reCAPTCHA challenges for their CDN that break images in a non-obvious manner.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Cloudflare Is Ruining the Internet” “have opted to put everything behind bullshit captchas because of the DDoS (nee AI) bots”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time” “I keep getting their bullshit "press and hold" nonsense even while logged in.”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Cloudflare was down” - Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Cloudflare Is Ruining the Internet”
Costly parts and shipping
“shipping from the big western parts suppliers (Digikey, Mouser, Segger) costs a lot of money”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"” “It's easy to get the military round connectors from Digikey; it just isn't cheap”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “The rise and fall of IBM's 4 Pi aerospace computers: an illustrated history” Slower service than before
“DigiKey used to be a good place to get.”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Designing and assembling my first PCB” “their services are much slower than they used to be”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks”
Other electronics distributors people recommend
The two most recommended other electronics distributors, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigiKeyThis page | 23 | 6 | 79% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Mouser Electronics | 18 | 10 | 64% | 9 | — | — |
| LCSC Electronics | 10 | 1 | 91% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
31 of the 32 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I'd have Digikey's interface everywhere if I could.”
“shipping from the big western parts suppliers (Digikey, Mouser, Segger) costs a lot of money”
“getting parts from mouser and digi-key was difficult”
“their services are much slower than they used to be”
“Too bad it couldn't see my digikey/mouser carts.”
“you still get really good vetting and high quality stuff”
“You can get a range of ESP32 boards from Digikey for $5-$8”
“the parcel came around from the tiny village of Thief River Falls MN to rural Bavaria in less than 30 hours”
“the parametric searches on digikey, mouser, etc are pretty good for the standard components”
“Otherwise digikey, mouser (good for connectors), farnell, rs etc, roughly in that order”
“Digikey and friends insisting on only delivering with express carrier”
“DigiKey used to be a good place to get.”
“you can filter by MOQ so you only see things that are available individually”
“I discovered Digi-Key in the ads. That's kind of life-changing”
“It's easy to get the military round connectors from Digikey; it just isn't cheap”
“Digikey is also that good for electronics parametric shopping.”
“It was cool to see them grow into a real competitor for the big distributors.”
“If we lost Digikey, Mouser, and AVNET, it would be catastrophic.”
“It's hard to overstate how screwed hardware design and prototyping would be if companies like digi-key went under.”
“They're organized to ship efficiently from a huge inventory of small parts”
“a text filter like what you seen on DigiKey”
“at least with Digikey, you can feel like you actually get the real part vs. some low end clone knockoff”
“the usual trusted sources for an authentic one”
“Parts finding functionality of DigiKey is pretty darn good”
“free shipping over 50eur and it'll arrive by DHL in less than 48hrs from the States”
“have opted to put everything behind bullshit captchas because of the DDoS (nee AI) bots”
“DigiKey makes me sit through their bullshit at nearly every request”
“I can't use DigiKey without getting silent CF reCAPTCHA challenges for their CDN that break images in a non-obvious manner.”
“I keep getting their bullshit "press and hold" nonsense even while logged in.”
“Counterfeits don't happen when you buy parts from reputable distributors (digikey, mouser, Newark, TTI, arrow, etc)”
“DigiKey, Mouser, and Newark all show the tariff as a line item.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.