IDA Pro
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 9 reverse engineering tools by recommenders
People recommend it for fast, accurate analysis of unusual binaries, a strong debugger and heavy scripting support. The most common caveat is that it is expensive for hobbyists.
People recommend it for fast, accurate analysis of unusual binaries, a strong debugger and heavy scripting support. The most common caveat is that it is expensive for hobbyists.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 25
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: 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
- 25 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Scriptable, strong typing and tooltips
“There are just too many nice features like Type tooltips, automagic mechanisms and one click operations”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “The Annotated VT100 Firmware (2022)” “I have a custom IDA Python-based CLI that lets LLMs trivially call into IDA's Python APIs from CLI”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable” “IDA is heavily scriptable so the LLM usually ends up interacting rather interesting ways”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 on Hacker News - Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable”
- Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “The Annotated VT100 Firmware (2022)”
Fast, accurate analysis of unusual binaries
“IDA excels because it has been developed for a gazillion years against patterns found in common binaries and has an extremely fast, ergonomic UI and an awesome debugger.”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA” “They are as good as it gets when it comes to not choking on unusual binaries.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser” “IDA is much faster and less resource-intensive than Ghidra”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA” - Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA”
Outperforms Ghidra on several points
“A lot of data shows IDA Pro is significantly better than Ghidra”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Kuna: Decompiler Development in the Age of Coding Agents” “Ida is far far better at interrupting tasks/crash recovery.”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA” “IDA is much faster and less resource-intensive than Ghidra”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA” Good for DOS executables
“It's a good disassembler for DOS applications and helps me navigate what I'm looking at”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Reverse Engineering Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon for DOS from 1990” “is the last Freeware version able to handle DOS executeables”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Reverse Engineering Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon for DOS from 1990”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Too expensive for hobbyists
“Useless for hobbyists unless pirated, but reasonable if it's your job.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Can you reverse engineer an ASIC?” “It's not worth the price for hobbyists.”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA” Decompiler bugs, corruptible database
“basically all being IDA decompilation bugs”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “KisakCOD – open-source reimplementation of Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer” “IDA's C++ API is really easy to misuse and corrupt a DB”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable” Licensing costs add up
“the fact that you have to pay extra for every single decompiler”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Ghidra by NSA” “try getting a license for IDA Pro”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Airbus Takes Flight from AWS”
Other reverse engineering tools people recommend
The four most recommended other reverse engineering tools, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghidra | 80 | 20 | 80% | 13 | — | Approved |
| GhidraMCP | 30 | 11 | 73% | 10 | — | Approved |
| IDA ProThis page | 25 | 7 | 78% | 9 | — | Approved |
| REA Reverse-Engineer Anything | 14 | 9 | 61% | 2 | — | — |
| Binary Ninja | 13 | 5 | 72% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
37 of the 38 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“There are just too many nice features like Type tooltips, automagic mechanisms and one click operations”
“There are just too many nice features like Type tooltips”
“At this point static analysis like IDA and Ghidra stopped working.”
“Well worth of money in the past”
“IDA Pro and Ghidra, thankfully, still lack such safeguards”
“Useless for hobbyists unless pirated, but reasonable if it's your job.”
“basically all being IDA decompilation bugs”
“A lot of data shows IDA Pro is significantly better than Ghidra”
“I feel like Ghidra is already ahead of them in this area”
“try getting a license for IDA Pro”
“even IDApro has perpetual license”
“IDA's C++ API is really easy to misuse and corrupt a DB”
“I have a custom IDA Python-based CLI that lets LLMs trivially call into IDA's Python APIs from CLI”
“IDA has a very powerful typing API for HexRays-decompiled code”
“The slop engine can drive IDA just fine.”
“the now-free-for-personal-use IDA Pro are so much better and move convenient”
“The knowledge base it outputs and the marked up IDA db are super valuable.”
“the keyboard shortcuts allow an experienced user to be pretty efficient in navigating code”
“It's a good disassembler for DOS applications and helps me navigate what I'm looking at”
“is the last Freeware version able to handle DOS executeables”
“like IDA free the platform support is very low”
“Ghidra, and to some extent IDA, had UXes that were very difficult for new users to pick up”
“IDA is much faster and less resource-intensive than Ghidra”
“Ida's defaults were just better.”
“Ida is far far better at interrupting tasks/crash recovery.”
“paying for something that I know works”
“I've used IDA, Ghidra, and Binary Ninja a lot over the years.”
“the fact that you have to pay extra for every single decompiler”
“it has really good pattern matching and is optimized on this use case”
“IDA's focus is very much highly accurate analysis”
“It's not worth the price for hobbyists.”
“IDA excels because it has been developed for a gazillion years against patterns found in common binaries and has an extremely fast, ergonomic UI and an awesome debugger.”
“IDA is heavily scriptable so the LLM usually ends up interacting rather interesting ways”
“all of them display code on the level of "C with classes" from early 00s”
“does the same but 10x better”
“They are as good as it gets when it comes to not choking on unusual binaries.”
“is absolutely enough for the accountable and fun work in our teams”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.