# Google Guava

7 Hacker News commenters recommended Google Guava and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Guava as a well-maintained Java library that fills gaps in the standard library. Some developers say they don't need it.

## Why people recommend it

- Easy to pull in as dependency (2 comments): "Unless you have some other mitigating factor or requirement, I think it'd be silly not to pull these in as dependencies" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46022553)) "With Mango or Guava its even easier." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938142))
- Fills gaps in Java standard library (2 comments): "C++ and Java have a bunch of stdlib extensions like boost, Guava, Apache Commons etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45848459)) "In Java we needed Guava to do anything interesting with functional programming." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530675))

## What people warn about

- Some developers avoid using it (2 comments): "I don't use apache commons or guava at all in java" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48024374)) "Guava for whatever cool reason, and so on." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384401))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Lombok](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lombok.md): 9 recommend
- [Apache Commons](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apache-commons.md): 8 recommend
- [LMAX Disruptor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lmax-disruptor.md): 6 recommend
- [Java Vector API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/java-vector-api.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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