LLDB
Shares rank 8 of 9 debuggers by recommenders
Recommended for stepping through code and scripting debug sessions, often over printf logging. Critics mostly find it slow to reach a first breakpoint.
Recommended for stepping through code and scripting debug sessions, often over printf logging. Critics mostly find it slow to reach a first breakpoint.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Useful for experimenting with small programs
“It helps to mess around a lot with smaller programs in gdb or lldb”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Show HN: Building a web server in assembly to give my life (a lack of) meaning” Scriptable debugging workflows
“That's why better to use lldb and it's scripts.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Rethinking C++: Architecture, Concepts, and Responsibility” Better than printf logging
“beats "printf" (i.e. logging) in the end”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “DDD was a great debugger – what would a modern equivalent look like today?” Follows your code well
“LLDB can actually follow your code”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow to reach first breakpoint
“debugging a native Cocoa macOS app via LLDB easily takes 5 to 10 seconds until the first breakpoint is reached”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Notes on Writing WASM” Weak tooling for displaying debug information
“I'm unhappy with the tooling GDB/LLDB provide for displaying and debugging this information”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Durin is a library for reading and writing the Dwarf debugging format” “the debugging experience in GDB or LLDB is worse than it really ought to be”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “No More JetBrains Products for Me” May stop working unexpectedly
“lldb will stop working at some point”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Velox: A Port of Tauri to Swift by Miguel de Icaza”
Other debuggers people recommend
The four most recommended other debuggers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDB (GNU Debugger) | 29 | 16 | 64% | 10 | — | — |
| WinDbg | 14 | 3 | 82% | 7 | — | Approved |
| HyperProbe | 12 | 1 | 92% | 1 | — | — |
| RenderDoc | 10 | 1 | 91% | 4 | — | Approved |
| LLDBThis page | 5 | 5 | 50% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the debugging experience in GDB or LLDB is worse than it really ought to be”
“It helps to mess around a lot with smaller programs in gdb or lldb”
“debugging a native Cocoa macOS app via LLDB easily takes 5 to 10 seconds until the first breakpoint is reached”
“lldb will stop working at some point”
“beats "printf" (i.e. logging) in the end”
“I'm unhappy with the tooling GDB/LLDB provide for displaying and debugging this information”
“That's why better to use lldb and it's scripts.”
“LLDB can actually follow your code”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.