# Diode

17 Hacker News commenters recommended Diode and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Browser-based tool to build, program and simulate circuits in 3D, valued for its visual simulation and approachability. Critics say it is clunky and hard to use.

## Why people recommend it

- Impressive, cool project (3 comments): "It's still clunky though. It's a great, cool thing that OP built but just not very practical." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47134934)) "This is actually very cool and predates vibe coding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136543)) "This is really terrific!!!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47134936))
- Good 3D viewer and graphics (2 comments): "Love the 3d viewer they've done here." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47138444)) "Damn the 3D graphics look great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47138647))
- Simulation makes circuits approachable (2 comments): "Simulations like this are more approachable then schematics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136427)) "the simulation aspect is the real killer feature though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47142609))

## What people warn about

- Crashes and bugs (5 comments): "Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47137903)) "it's stuck in an infinite request loop and pins my cpu for absolutely no reason" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47135814)) "voltage around the LED slowly rises to infinity for some reason" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47143434))
- Clunky, difficult interface (3 comments): "Looks great, but pretty difficult to work with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47134799)) "It's still clunky though. It's a great, cool thing that OP built but just not very practical." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47134934)) "pretty terrible UI for electronic circuits" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47137176))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [LTspice](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ltspice.md): 10 recommend
- [SPICE](https://hackerapproved.com/p/spice.md): 8 recommend
- [ngspice](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ngspice.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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