Google OR-Tools
Shares rank 2 of 6 optimization solvers by recommenders
Free Google library people use to solve scheduling and assignment problems; critics say it is mostly linear programming and can be slow on hard instances.
Free Google library people use to solve scheduling and assignment problems; critics say it is mostly linear programming and can be slow on hard instances.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 60%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Scheduling and assignment problems
“Was using or-tools to solve my friend's scheduling problems with coworkers.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Solving complex optimization problems with Google OR-Tools in browser” “I built this for a conference planner SaaS, which felt very real.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Solving complex optimization problems with Google OR-Tools in browser”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow on some problems
“it would take multiple minutes to generate assignments”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Using OR-Tools CP-SAT for Scheduling Problems” “take 15 minutes or more for ~every non-commercial solver (or-tools, HIGHS, ipopt, etc)”
Comment from 12 Jul 2026 in “Optimization Solver as a Service” “we need solutions faster than my initial exploration with OR Tools could yield”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Using OR-Tools CP-SAT for Scheduling Problems”
Other optimization solvers people recommend
The four most recommended other optimization solvers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Z3 SMT solver | 24 | 2 | 92% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Google OR-ToolsThis page | 6 | 4 | 60% | 3 | — | — |
| MiniZinc | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
| OR-Tools CP-SAT | 6 | 1 | 86% | 3 | — | — |
| Gurobi | 6 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they've never had a repeatable working build system”
“Google OR-Tools, for example”
“take 15 minutes or more for ~every non-commercial solver (or-tools, HIGHS, ipopt, etc)”
“OR-tools is almost exclusively linear programming which according to its strict assumptions converges more or less trivially”
“can speed things up a lot”
“I built this for a conference planner SaaS, which felt very real.”
“Was using or-tools to solve my friend's scheduling problems with coworkers.”
“we need solutions faster than my initial exploration with OR Tools could yield”
“it would take multiple minutes to generate assignments”
“standard OR solvers (such as Google OR-Tools) struggled with the dynamic nature of the requests”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.