Mach programming language
Shares rank 99 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Readable, explicit systems language built without LLVM, with performance that one commenter says is only about 1.3x slower than C in some cases.
Readable, explicit systems language built without LLVM, with performance that one commenter says is only about 1.3x slower than C in some cases.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Fully self-hosted, no LLVM dependency
“fully self hosted without any external dependencies is incredibly impressive, amazing work”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” “Archiving that without the behemoth of LLVM is really impressive!”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” “Quite impressive to develop so much without turning to LLVM.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” Explicit, anti-magic design philosophy
“I find the goals of explicitness and maintainability to be really pitched to my current taste.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” “I like the anti magic and explicit philosophy you have.”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” Readable syntax and standard library
“I like the syntax. The example code and a couple files in src I looked at were all easy to read.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” “I really like the syntax and structure of the standard library”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” Performance close to C in places
“The performance is definitely something I'm happy with at this early stage.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions” “In some cases, we were only about 1.3x slower which is fantastic IMO.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Mach – A compiled systems language looking for contributions”
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The four most recommended other programming languages, 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.
See all 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
All 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Fantastic stuff! You should join the discord if that's your ballgame.”
“I really like the syntax and structure of the standard library”
“I like the anti magic and explicit philosophy you have.”
“which as I stated in another comment has some pretty appealing characteristics for me”
“The performance is definitely something I'm happy with at this early stage.”
“Achieving safety is very possible, and entirely optional.”
“Dramatically simpler language to use.”
“In some cases, we were only about 1.3x slower which is fantastic IMO.”
“Quite impressive to develop so much without turning to LLVM.”
“This is an awesome achievement. I am not so sure how you made it 4x slower than C”
“Archiving that without the behemoth of LLVM is really impressive!”
“I find the goals of explicitness and maintainability to be really pitched to my current taste.”
“This looks really nice, great work so far!”
“I like the syntax. The example code and a couple files in src I looked at were all easy to read.”
“fully self hosted without any external dependencies is incredibly impressive, amazing work”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.