# LightGBM

7 Hacker News commenters recommended LightGBM and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a default for tabular data, often beating neural networks, though most people note it still needs good feature engineering.

## Why people recommend it

- Default choice for tabular data (2 comments): "xgboost and lightgbm still outperformed anything NN based for tabular data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171780)) "reach for XGBoost/LightGBM for tabular data is also good advice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47040556))
- Works well with feature engineering (2 comments): "performing miracles after a heck of a lot fearure engineering" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874086)) "You can use lightgbm with appropriate feature engineering." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47585718))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [PyTorch](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pytorch.md): 131 recommend
- [MLX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mlx.md): 75 recommend
- [JAX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jax.md): 49 recommend
- [OpenCV](https://hackerapproved.com/p/opencv.md): 46 recommend
- [tinygrad](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tinygrad.md): 40 recommend

## Cite as

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