LINQ
Hacker ApprovedQuery library in Developer tools
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.
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.
44 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 36
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: 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
- 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 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
Ahead of Java and other languages
“linq in C# is a killer function that other languages still fail to replicate”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “Go 1.27 Interactive Tour” “LINQ is vastly superior to anything that Java offered”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “.NET 10” “Microsoft was really onto something with LINQ”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “What Category Theory Teaches Us About DataFrames” - Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Anecdotally, programmers dislike "reduce"”
- Comment from 24 May 2026 in “dotNET (OK, C#) gets union types”
Developers miss it outside C#
“the wow effect I had from using LINQ has never been repeated with anything else”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Project Valhalla, Explained: How a Decade of Work Arrives in JDK 28” “someone would have to pry LINQ out of my cold, dead hands”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)” “I've been envying the C# people and their LINQ”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Everyone Should Know SIMD” - Comment from 6 Jul 2026 in “What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)”
- Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)”
Works well with Entity Framework
“C# LINQ also seem to be the best compromise between ORM and raw SQL queries”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Java 27” “Entity Framework Core with Linq is what keeps me on .NET.”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “The history of C# and TypeScript with Anders Hejlsberg | GitHub” “Entity Framework and LINQ are gifts from the Gods.”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Java 27” - Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “Java Is Fast. Your Code Might Not Be”
Strongly typed, language-native queries
“the best query language is probably whatever query feature that's already in your backend language, LINQ for C# for example”
Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “Things I want in a modern relational query language” “C#'s LINQ (code as data, like LISP) wins over golang for any type of data access. Strongly-typed, language-native queries.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Axios Compromised on NPM – Malicious Versions Drop Remote Access Trojan” “The Linq code is native C# that can be strongly typed for ID's”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Moldova broke our data pipeline”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow for performance-sensitive code
“it's so convenient, but you just can't use it for performance-sensitive stuff”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “C# now beats Rust on WASM size” “We can do way better then LINQ in an extendable language.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Bun-sqlgen – Type-safe raw SQL for Bun, no ORM” “LINQ usually allocates shittonnes of new stuff”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “C# in Unity 2026: Features Most Developers Still Don't Use” Easy to misuse; behavior not obvious
“It speed-runs juniors into thinking they are writing transactional code when they aren't.”
Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “Things I want in a modern relational query language” “results in footguns that the source language did not have”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Stop Designing Languages. Write Libraries Instead (2016)” “I then demonstrated that LINQ breaks its transactionality”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “What Even Are Microservices?” - Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “C# in Unity 2026: Features Most Developers Still Don't Use”
What people said
40 of the 47 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The imperative code can express temporality much easier”
“it's so convenient, but you just can't use it for performance-sensitive stuff”
“maybe Microsoft got it right with LINQ”
“C# LINQ also seem to be the best compromise between ORM and raw SQL queries”
“Entity Framework and LINQ are gifts from the Gods.”
“I just don't see the upgrade of what you're solving here.”
“It speed-runs juniors into thinking they are writing transactional code when they aren't.”
“the best query language is probably whatever query feature that's already in your backend language, LINQ for C# for example”
“linq in C# is a killer function that other languages still fail to replicate”
“I then demonstrated that LINQ breaks its transactionality”
“I've been envying the C# people and their LINQ”
“LINQ is typically what I miss most from C#”
“someone would have to pry LINQ out of my cold, dead hands”
“I just pine for LINQ/EF Core.”
“We can do way better then LINQ in an extendable language.”
“I mostly blame it on Linq but you are right it mostly because bad documentation on both the provider and the general stuff on how Linq works.”
“the wow effect I had from using LINQ has never been repeated with anything else”
“LINQ can in many cases improve performance significantly in large applications when used properly”
“AspNetCore startup code, LINQ and EF are good examples.”
“Linq alone left Java behind.”
“I find that way of thinking has been very helpful in developing with LINQ in C#”
“If you want to avoid string manipulation then you can construct queries with a query builder API like C#'s LINQ.”
“LINQ usually allocates shittonnes of new stuff”
“A LINQ statement is a lot easier to parse than a long block inside a foreach.”
“it is not obvious and best avoided”
“Microsoft was really onto something with LINQ”
“C#'s LINQ (code as data, like LISP) wins over golang for any type of data access. Strongly-typed, language-native queries.”
“It solves all of your issues with “ORMs””
“The Linq code is native C# that can be strongly typed for ID's”
“they make the right thing easier than the wrong thing”
“I always preferred the linq syntax with the from first too”
“pipeline execution order follows the order as written in the code”
“Entity Framework Core with Linq is what keeps me on .NET.”
“results in footguns that the source language did not have”
“the only(?) great XML workflow is with C# LINQ”
“LINQ rivals SQL itself in that you can write very small yet powerful queries”
“C#/NATS/LINQ combination provides amazing language primitives in building distributed business production systems”
“pretty robust set of tooling that was ahead of its time”
“My ideal language would be like Go + Linq.”
“LINQ is vastly superior to anything that Java offered”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.