IBM POWER
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 6 servers by recommenders
Recommended for servers and critical workloads that must stay up, and for its well-regarded architecture; the common caveat is weaker multi-core performance than mainstream server CPUs.
Recommended for servers and critical workloads that must stay up, and for its well-regarded architecture; the common caveat is weaker multi-core performance than mainstream server CPUs.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 72%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.6 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
Still strong for servers
“POWER may have dropped out of the consumer space but it still has a vital place in servers.”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “IBM Debuts First Sub-1 Nanometer Chip Technology” “IBM still sells extremely POWER ful systems”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry” “Power chips are still excellent”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “IBM Unveils Next Generation Dual-Architecture Processor for IBM Z and LinuxONE” Well-designed, pleasant architecture
“The RISC ISAs developed later, including ARM, HP PA-RISC and IBM POWER, have avoided some of the mistakes”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “RISC-V Is Sloooow” “the architecture is an absolute pleasure to work with whenever I have to”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration with Arm” Useful POWER9 features and firmware
“At least it's been fine for four years of research software on a POWER9 cluster”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “GCC SC approves inclusion of Algol 68 Front End” “The switch to closed source firmware in Power10 is also a downer.”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Decorative Cryptography” “It is such a nice system with openfirmware.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration with Arm” Reliable for workloads that can't go down
“their shit Just Works so anyone doing Serious Business just keeps using them”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “What was a Token Ring network?” “Their mainframes handle the critical infrastructure that can't go down.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lagging Linux kernel support
“Linux hasn't supported POWER7 in quite some time”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “A 10 year old Xeon is all you need (for 26B-A4B MTP Drafters without GPU)” “being unable to run a modern Linux kernel would be more work than I wanted to have”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “I Put a Datacenter GPU in My Gaming PC for £200” Trails mainstream multi-core performance
“a brilliant architecture that was simply out run by others”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “CT scans of BYD car parts” “After Power9, IBM became uncompetitive multi-core performance against mainstream server CPUs”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration with Arm” Closed firmware and per-cycle charges
“The switch to closed source firmware in Power10 is also a downer.”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Decorative Cryptography” “They also charge you for every instruction cycle on the machines”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry”
Other servers people recommend
The four most recommended other servers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxide Computer rack | 92 | 20 | 82% | 10 | — | Approved |
| IBM Z mainframe | 23 | 8 | 74% | 11 | — | Approved |
| IBM POWERThis page | 13 | 5 | 72% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Nvidia GH200 server | 12 | 2 | 86% | 2 | — | — |
| IBM AS/400 | 11 | 6 | 65% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
21 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“their shit Just Works so anyone doing Serious Business just keeps using them”
“POWER should be the real competitor.”
“The main problem is software support by most machine learning libraries.”
“Power chips are still excellent”
“POWER may have dropped out of the consumer space but it still has a vital place in servers.”
“a brilliant architecture that was simply out run by others”
“Linux hasn't supported POWER7 in quite some time”
“being unable to run a modern Linux kernel would be more work than I wanted to have”
“They also charge you for every instruction cycle on the machines”
“IBM still sells extremely POWER ful systems”
“I prefer simpler methods, like the conditional traps of IBM POWER”
“It is such a nice system with openfirmware.”
“After Power9, IBM became uncompetitive multi-core performance against mainstream server CPUs”
“the architecture is an absolute pleasure to work with whenever I have to”
“for what it does and workloads that are suited to it”
“The RISC ISAs developed later, including ARM, HP PA-RISC and IBM POWER, have avoided some of the mistakes”
“it's nice to know Itanium didn't kill off every enterprise RISC platform”
“POWER9 had quite a few neat things going on.”
“The switch to closed source firmware in Power10 is also a downer.”
“Their mainframes handle the critical infrastructure that can't go down.”
“At least it's been fine for four years of research software on a POWER9 cluster”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.