# Hack programming language

26 Hacker News commenters recommended Hack programming language and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free PHP-derived language from Meta with a more expressive type system and async support. Critics say it adds another standard with its own problems.

## Why people recommend it

- Improves on PHP's flaws (4 comments): "They already did one better and upgraded the whole language in the form of Hack." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229999)) "IMO Hack is much better than PHP, I'm sad that it never gained traction" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077295)) "Hack was the better language for so many reasons" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645277))
- Expressive type system beats PHP (2 comments): "Hack has a really expressive type system where PHP does not." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488983)) "Hack has a really expressive type system where PHP does not" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493102))
- Fans call it brilliant and better (3 comments): "Hack is also brilliant. Thanks for your work and continued maintaining it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658140)) "Personally, I prefer the Hack version." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597804)) "Thank you for HACK. I love it!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46302048))

## What people warn about

- Adds another standard with problems (2 comments): "I really can't endorse attempts like Hack which just introduce a new standard with its own problems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49742911)) "hacklang is too different" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49638582))
- Little more than syntactic sugar (2 comments): "ended up offering little more than syntactic sugar" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46903283)) "rather superficial cap systems like Hack" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49454166))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

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