# SideFX Houdini

14 Hacker News commenters recommended SideFX Houdini and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended for procedural 3D, simulation, compositing and VFX work that handles huge point counts. Caveats: a steep learning curve and a bare-bones real-time viewport.

## Why people recommend it

- Excels at 3D, simulation and compositing (3 comments): "you can do everything from full-body muscle simulation to writing a OpenCL image processing kernel there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48196670)) "fantastic for most kinds of 3D work, compositing, and post-processing tasks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799429)) "Houdini is software that excels at manipulating vast numbers of points" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670897))
- Widely admired, enthusiastically praised (4 comments): "one of my favourite micro-UX features of high-end graphics software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446183)) "Houdini is goated in the space" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46741331)) "Houdini's getting really close" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45988163))

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.sidefx.com/)

## Cite as

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