LabVIEW
Ranked 3 of 4 visual programming environments by recommenders
People recommend LabVIEW for drag-and-drop data acquisition and processing, with easy debugging. Critics say it fits only narrow use cases and suits large projects poorly.
People recommend LabVIEW for drag-and-drop data acquisition and processing, with easy debugging. Critics say it fits only narrow use cases and suits large projects poorly.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Loved by long-time users
“it's still one of my favorite "languages" of all time”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Go 1.27 Is Released” “Love it! Used to make games with it, even”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Spatial languages: Writing code in 2D”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Poor fit for large projects
“Moving from LABVIEW to a real programming language that integrated with remotely modern development tooling was worth it.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages” “Compiling such a project takes upwards of an hour, and you can't rely on the interpreter environment”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages” “It's like choosing to use LabView for a large programming project”
Comment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Show HN: BBRouter – Ben Eater's 8-bit computer, simulated on 3D breadboards” Feels dated and ossified
“The whole thing felt scattered and ossified.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Wolfram Compute Services” “Labview today feels and looks like a 90s app”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Gpiozero Flow”
Other visual programming environments people recommend
The three most recommended other visual programming environments, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max by Cycling '74 | 15 | 18 | 45% | 8 | — | — |
| Pure Data | 13 | 2 | 87% | 8 | — | Approved |
| LabVIEWThis page | 7 | 6 | 54% | 6 | — | — |
| PlugData | 5 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's like choosing to use LabView for a large programming project”
“it's still one of my favorite "languages" of all time”
“Labview today feels and looks like a 90s app”
“Love it! Used to make games with it, even”
“Sure, it fits well for a very narrow class of use cases.”
“I really wish I could make something where I could drag and drop display and data acquisition and processing components like LabView”
“Debugging in LabVIEW was also very easy with probes, conditional breakpoints etc.”
“That's why LabVIEW (originally a Mac exclusive) and NI-DAQ no longer exist on Mac.”
“go program something in LabView, you'll quickly understand why that's a bad idea”
“even that was a regrettable decision”
“The whole thing felt scattered and ossified.”
“Compiling such a project takes upwards of an hour, and you can't rely on the interpreter environment”
“LabVIEW is a real programming language”
“Moving from LABVIEW to a real programming language that integrated with remotely modern development tooling was worth it.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.