Haxe
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 69 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Recommended for a free language with a strong type system that compiles one codebase to many targets. Critics note a stagnant ecosystem and features sacrificed for cross-target compatibility.
Recommended for a free language with a strong type system that compiles one codebase to many targets. Critics note a stagnant ecosystem and features sacrificed for cross-target compatibility.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: 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 carries the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Enjoyable and fun to program in
“Haxe is such a great piece of tech, which becomes more and more powerful as you get to know it better.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Loreline, narrative language transpiled via Haxe: C++/C#/JS/Java/Py/Lua” “I took Haxe for a spin years ago and was really impressed”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Loreline, narrative language transpiled via Haxe: C++/C#/JS/Java/Py/Lua” “I am always fascinated with the capabilities of Haxe.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “XMPP and Metadata” - Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Loreline, narrative language transpiled via Haxe: C++/C#/JS/Java/Py/Lua”
- Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “I Write Games in C (yes, C)”
One codebase targets many languages
“One set goes into haxe files and I use reflaxe macros to write tiny compilers that generate docs, clients, servers”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You” “You could target a huge number of targets from a single codebase.”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Experiment: Making TypeScript immutable-by-default” “a language that was able to transpile to several languages”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Bun is being ported from Zig to Rust” Better alternative to TypeScript
“its basically a better version of what typescript is to javascript”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Loreline, narrative language transpiled via Haxe: C++/C#/JS/Java/Py/Lua” “Before typescript we had Haxe, and its still a "better language".”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Lisette a little language inspired by Rust that compiles to Go” “Haxe because i want a better typescript alternative”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What language are you using to do AOC in?” Robust, simple type system
“Haxe has a more robust, but simpler typesystem, that comes from ocaml.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “The Concise TypeScript Book” “has an awesome typesystem and metaprogramming capabilities”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Experiment: Making TypeScript immutable-by-default”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, 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 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
30 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“One set goes into haxe files and I use reflaxe macros to write tiny compilers that generate docs, clients, servers”
“You can catch some problems upstream as build errors rather than waiting to catch them in the generated code.”
“Transcompile languages have always had tons of issues, and there is a reason why non became popular.”
“I had to give up on trying to get LLMs to write working Haxe code.”
“One pattern I've really been enjoying lately has to do with a language called haxe.”
“both had/have serious debugging issues”
“their focus on games made it (perceived as) lacking”
“the mismatch between what you think you get with [], and what you actually get in Lua”
“could be a perfect (I may be biased and didn't dig) candidate for Haxe to JS dev”
“which has already solved a lot of the issues around designing a good cross-target language”
“a language that was able to transpile to several languages”
“Before typescript we had Haxe, and its still a "better language".”
“its basically a better version of what typescript is to javascript”
“Haxe is such a great piece of tech, which becomes more and more powerful as you get to know it better.”
“Haxe is a nice programming language.”
“I took Haxe for a spin years ago and was really impressed”
“Many Flash devs moved to Haxe to continue creating on that platform and it managed to survive and thrive.”
“but to me it's still kind of missing half of what I liked about Flash”
“Haxe is a great language but it feels like the ecosystem has been stagnant for 10 years.”
“it's quite fun to work with”
“I still do creative, non-standard work, but in a free way”
“The language itself is receiving significant development”
“I am always fascinated with the capabilities of Haxe.”
“the compiler (written in ocaml) was always fast as anything out there”
“Shame it doesn't solve the problem at hand.”
“Haxe has a more robust, but simpler typesystem, that comes from ocaml.”
“Haxe because i want a better typescript alternative”
“Haxe often meant sacrificing language features to stay compatible across all targets.”
“You could target a huge number of targets from a single codebase.”
“has an awesome typesystem and metaprogramming capabilities”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.