# Glow

18 Hacker News commenters recommended Glow and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a good terminal markdown viewer with customizable themes. Common caveat: it lacks search, a table of contents, and math equation support.

## Why people recommend it

- Good terminal markdown viewer (5 comments): "If you're looking for a CLI markdown reader then I'd recommend glow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46363687)) "Glow is also an excellent markdown viewer for the terminal" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47893369)) "I also thought Glow was really excellent, but that's me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48109106))
- General-purpose markdown renderer option (3 comments): "For anyone looking for a more general renderer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49657574)) "or just use glow which is golang." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47893845)) "and/or a renderer (like glow)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45895880))

## What people warn about

- Missing features like search and math (2 comments): "the more I used it, the more I found myself wanting features like a persistent TOC, search, watch mode, and mouse support" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48402462)) "glow doesn't do math equations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47893728))
- Outperformed by other viewers (2 comments): "glow - the most popular cli renderer, was about 100x slower and used about 100x more RAM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546673)) "I like the results better than glow, bat and a few other viewers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563852))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [leaf Markdown viewer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/leaf.md): 7 recommend
- [Marked](https://hackerapproved.com/p/marked.md): 5 recommend
- [Markdown Viewer and Editor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/markdown-viewer-and-editor.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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