Fuchsia OS
Shares rank 29 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
Google's open-source microkernel OS, praised for capability-based security and interesting design ideas, though it has been shelved repeatedly and has little real-world use.
Google's open-source microkernel OS, praised for capability-based security and interesting design ideas, though it has been shelved repeatedly and has little real-world use.
34 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not 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
Interesting technical design ideas
“There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Google just gave us an accidental first look at Android's PC future” “it has made some very interesting technical decisions”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Linux kernel framework for PCIe device emulation, in userspace” “I think Google's Fuchsia has some interesting ideas.”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)” - Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Kernel bugs hide for 2 years on average. Some hide for 20”
Capability-based security model
“there are plenty of well-documented warts with the approach which Fuchsia aimed to solve via capabilities”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Grok uploaded my user directory to xAI's servers” “By default when creating a new thread or process under Fuchsia you don't have access to the kernel.”
Comment from 21 Sep 2026 in “Software sandboxing: The basics (2025)” Active Rust networking stack development
“developing a new Rust based networking stack that’s really worth digging into”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “libwifi: an 802.11 frame parsing and generation library written in C (2023)” “it's also very active as a project”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 4 Argon”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Abandoned or shelved by Google
“There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Google just gave us an accidental first look at Android's PC future” “when it didn't yield something substantial they just scattered the team”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook” “They'd half-finish it then bury it, like they did with Fuchsia”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “AI Pointer from DeepMind” - Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “JavaScript-heavy approaches are not compatible with long-term performance goals”
Unclear purpose and business case
“it is not a viable idea to make a tectonic platform switch with not much business arguments for it”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Google just gave us an accidental first look at Android's PC future” “it doesn't seem to do anything cool that hasn't been done before”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Maybe we should revisit microkernels” “There's no real focus between Android, ChromeOS, and Fuschia.”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Google just gave Sundar Pichai a $692M pay package” Tied to Google's Dart language
“one of the biggest barriers to Fuchsia adoption has been Google asking people to commit to Dart”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Why Go Is an Ideal Language for AI-Assisted Software Engineering” “I think Dart and Flutter and Fuchsia had similar cultural problems”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Fine, I'll build my own text editor”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, 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 87 operating systems, rankedWhat people said
28 of the 37 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it doesn't support much hardware without writing your own drivers”
“it's also very active as a project”
“By default when creating a new thread or process under Fuchsia you don't have access to the kernel.”
“Which is why they planned to replace the entire kernel and services with zircon and fuchsia”
“I think Dart and Flutter and Fuchsia had similar cultural problems”
“one of the biggest barriers to Fuchsia adoption has been Google asking people to commit to Dart”
“Google is on a path to migrate to Fuchsia eventually.”
“it doesn't seem to do anything cool that hasn't been done before”
“Only Fuchsia might have a chance, because of the disproportionate control that Google has over the Android applications”
“There exist several microkernels that don't suffer much from overhead”
“there are plenty of well-documented warts with the approach which Fuchsia aimed to solve via capabilities”
“when it didn't yield something substantial they just scattered the team”
“remains utterly irrelevant, aside from a couple of poorly received”
“They'd half-finish it then bury it, like they did with Fuchsia”
“There's no real focus between Android, ChromeOS, and Fuschia.”
“Fuchsia never made it big”
“There are still newer OSes try like Redox or Fuchsia.”
“got distracted by Fuchsia”
“it is not a viable idea to make a tectonic platform switch with not much business arguments for it”
“There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared.”
“the only place it was ever deployed was to a Google smart home hub 5 years ago”
“it has made some very interesting technical decisions”
“they should be shining examples of the performance of a brand new OS and yet they are anything but”
“Plan 9, SEL4, Fuschia, Helios, too many smaller hobby operating systems to count.”
“Fuchsia/Zircon have improved on the model further.”
“I think Google's Fuchsia has some interesting ideas.”
“Fuchsia (operating system, also open) is shipping to consumer products today.”
“developing a new Rust based networking stack that’s really worth digging into”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.