# Mac Pro

49 Hacker News commenters recommended Mac Pro and 92 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 16 years (10 owners).

**Verdict:** Expandable workstation with PCIe slots and drive bays, solidly built and kept for years. Main caveat: no Nvidia GPU support, and it is discontinued.

## Why people recommend it

- Expansion slots and easy-swap drive bays (3 comments): "the ability to slot in many-many different audio interfaces into a box instead of dangling out to various PCIe enclosures has been a big win" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47541420)) "The 2013 trash can was the end of the Mac Pro." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47537817)) "If they had reduced the add-in card slots to something more reasonable, lowered the entry price" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538721))
- Reliable, long-lived, needs little maintenance (3 comments): "the 2023 model was basically a joke." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47536670)) "It remains the most reliable computer I have ever owned." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47075550)) "They require no IT time. They require no maintenance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577940))
- Runs Linux and Windows well (3 comments): "offer dual 1GbE Intel NICs that work natively on Linux, and have plenty of CPU and RAM overhead" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47574732)) "When the TrashCan came out, there was a specific issue with Resolve that disappeared when booted into Windows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50201644)) "Linux on Mac Pro 5.1 from 2009 and 2017 MacBook Air, both working perfectly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47919450))
- Cheap used workstation power (2 comments): "It cost me $200. Where else am I getting 64 GB and 12 cores for $200?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358249)) "The trashcan really turned me off of the Mac Pro series." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47541701))

## What people warn about

- No Nvidia GPU support (6 comments): "Mac owners are pleading for signed CUDA drivers for the PCIe or Thunderbolt in their $5,000+ Mac Pros." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48362945)) "Apple really dropped the ball here. They had every ability to make something competitive with Nvidia for AI training" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538218)) "Thunderbolt eGPUs haven't been able to be used on Apple Silicon machines, and the Mac Pro has the same limitation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49522893))
- Discontinued with no successor (6 comments): "how the Mac Pro is struggling to find any place any more" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47540170)) "Depreciating the Mac Pro is a solipsistic, insane decision that formally abandons Apple's attempts at dominating anything except the prosumer market." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280566)) "That's when they stopped designing computers for the pro market and started selling mid-century Danish furniture that can also edit videos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47537872))
- Very expensive at launch (3 comments): "horrendously expensive and doesn't offer much benefit over a Mac Studio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538713)) "at the time of release the Mac Pro was prohibitively expensive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45972314)) "but these lack expansion slots" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46053810))
- Poor long-term OS and security support (3 comments): "it's getting continually further out-of-date security wise all the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48364613)) "it became too much of a PITA to keep modern OSX running on it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47537665)) "That's probably the worst OS support story in recent Apple history, and it's for some of their most expensive machines" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950239))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Tinybox by tinygrad](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tinybox.md): 25 recommend
- [Dell Precision](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dell-precision.md): 23 recommend
- [Sun SPARCstation IPX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sun-sparcstation-ipx.md): 12 recommend
- [SGI Indy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sgi-indy.md): 9 recommend
- [Puget Systems workstation](https://hackerapproved.com/p/puget-systems.md): 9 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Apple+Mac+Pro+desktop+computer&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.apple.com/mac/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Mac Pro", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mac-pro/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).