DrRacket
Shares rank 6 of 7 programming environments by recommenders
Free IDE for Racket with features people say other editors lack, and used for teaching programming. Critics find its interface clunky and unintuitive, and say it can slow programs down.
Free IDE for Racket with features people say other editors lack, and used for teaching programming. Critics find its interface clunky and unintuitive, and say it can slow programs down.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Features other editors lack
“DrRacket the IDE has some nice features that just don't exist in other editors.”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Racket v9.0” Good for teaching programming
“I had a lot of fun teaching adults to program using DrRacket”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study” Visual view of import placement
“Dr Racket lets you see visually where import goes into code”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Rhombus 1.1 is now available”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Clunky, unintuitive, unpolished interface
“always found the "IDE" to be really unintuitive, clunky and weird”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Racket v9.0” “It feels unpolished and a bit janky.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Rhombus 1.1 is now available” Dislikes it as a whole environment
“DrRacket is easily the worst programming environment I've ever used.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Scheme-langserver – Digest incomplete code with static analysis” “something about Dr. Racket annoyed me”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Rhombus 1.1 is now available”
Other programming environments people recommend
The four most recommended other programming environments, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HyperCard | 62 | 5 | 93% | 11 | — | Approved |
| QBasic | 27 | 3 | 90% | 11 | — | Approved |
| QuickBASIC | 8 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | — |
| Folk Computer | 6 | 2 | 75% | 6 | — | — |
| DrRacketThis page | 5 | 4 | 56% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I had a lot of fun teaching adults to program using DrRacket”
“It feels unpolished and a bit janky.”
“something about Dr. Racket annoyed me”
“Dr Racket lets you see visually where import goes into code”
“DrRacket is easily the worst programming environment I've ever used.”
“it blocks a lot of optimizations and the program get slow.”
“DrRacket the IDE has some nice features that just don't exist in other editors.”
“always found the "IDE" to be really unintuitive, clunky and weird”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.