# Learn OpenGL

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Learn OpenGL and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free, thorough tutorial site that teaches modern shader-based graphics, praised as the best OpenGL starting point. Critics say it stays tied to the OpenGL API.

## Why people recommend it

- Best OpenGL tutorial available (5 comments): "You will never get the same quality of fundamental education material from any of the other tutorials" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024300)) "the most useful resource for OpenGL by an order of magnitude" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49023463)) "The one and only Holy Bible of Graphics Programming." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024659))
- Thorough coverage of graphics fundamentals (4 comments): "I've never seen a more detailed tutorial than LearnOpenGL that actually goes through the concepts of graphics programming thoroughly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024779)) "learnopengl explains a lot of basics like transformation coordinates, what a mesh is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024866)) "what it covers is the fundamentals of real time graphics, not just OpenGL API" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49025576))
- Teaches modern shader-based approach (3 comments): "The site teaches you the shader approach (rather than the fixed function pipeline of the 90s)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49026865)) "With the new/shader-based API, well... https://learnopengl.com/Getting-started/Hello-Triangle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49027435)) "the learnopengl.com tutorial and examples will still work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49030859))
- Good introduction for beginners (2 comments): "I used Learn OpenGL to learn about graphics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49033674)) "learn opengl is a really good introduction" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49023489))

## What people warn about

- Fundamentals tied to OpenGL API (3 comments): "Is it? All the fundamentals are tied to how it's done in OpenGL with somewhat sparse explanations in between." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49026546)) "Then you should learn concepts of graphics programming that isn't defined with code snippets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49026583)) "Everything is steeped in OpenGL API. All the "fundamentals" are about OpenGL." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49027094))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [CSS-Tricks](https://hackerapproved.com/p/css-tricks.md): 23 recommend
- [Patterns.dev](https://hackerapproved.com/p/patterns-dev.md): 12 recommend
- [Fintech Engineering Handbook](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fintech-engineering-handbook.md): 12 recommend
- [vimtutor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vimtutor.md): 8 recommend
- [Beej's Guide by Brian Hall](https://hackerapproved.com/p/beej-s-guide.md): 7 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Learn OpenGL", https://hackerapproved.com/p/learn-opengl/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).