# LINQ

36 Hacker News commenters recommended LINQ and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Built into C# and free with .NET, LINQ gives strongly typed, language-native queries over data and collections. Critics say it is easy to misuse and can perform poorly.

## Why people recommend it

- Ahead of Java and other languages (5 comments): "linq in C# is a killer function that other languages still fail to replicate" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49145357)) "LINQ is vastly superior to anything that Java offered" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45898520)) "Microsoft was really onto something with LINQ" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47630505))
- Developers miss it outside C# (5 comments): "the wow effect I had from using LINQ has never been repeated with anything else" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48606514)) "someone would have to pry LINQ out of my cold, dead hands" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48787498)) "I've been envying the C# people and their LINQ" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024426))
- Works well with Entity Framework (4 comments): "C# LINQ also seem to be the best compromise between ORM and raw SQL queries" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713941)) "Entity Framework Core with Linq is what keeps me on .NET." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849812)) "Entity Framework and LINQ are gifts from the Gods." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713458))
- Strongly typed, language-native queries (3 comments): "the best query language is probably whatever query feature that's already in your backend language, LINQ for C# for example" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49410228)) "C#'s LINQ (code as data, like LISP) wins over golang for any type of data access. Strongly-typed, language-native queries." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47586140)) "The Linq code is native C# that can be strongly typed for ID's" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232538))

## What people warn about

- Slow for performance-sensitive code (3 comments): "it's so convenient, but you just can't use it for performance-sensitive stuff" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188232)) "We can do way better then LINQ in an extendable language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48658778)) "LINQ usually allocates shittonnes of new stuff" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47770530))
- Easy to misuse; behavior not obvious (4 comments): "It speed-runs juniors into thinking they are writing transactional code when they aren't." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49412269)) "results in footguns that the source language did not have" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530926)) "I then demonstrated that LINQ breaks its transactionality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49082398))

## Cite as

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