# MAI-Code-1-Flash by Microsoft Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/mai-code-1-flash/ 9 people recommended MAI-Code-1-Flash by Microsoft in Hacker News comments, 5 had mixed feelings and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 12 months, in 5 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. 5 of the 9 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “Microsoft's MAI-Code-1-Flash Scores 51% SWE-Bench Pro with Just 5B Active Params”. **Verdict:** Criticized more than recommended, mainly for weak comparisons and unpublished costs and training data; those who recommend it cite strong coding benchmark scores from a small 5B-active-parameter model and a detailed technical report. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. ## What people warn about - Weak baselines like Haiku (3 comments in the sample): "they only do cherry-picked comparisons against Anthropics small models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48381413)) "I don't see the point in comparing yourself to Haiku which is not only useless for coding but also old" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48376376)) "they are comparing themselves to Haiku of all things, geez that's not a good start" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375665)) - Not clearly better than open models (3 comments in the sample): "it's basically the performance of Qwen3.6-35B-A3B which is 75% smaller" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375754)) "I don't see how this is competitive with Chinese models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48382004)) "So it's not an open model while not being much better?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375253)) - Not available in Copilot or Foundry (2 comments in the sample): "But nowhere to be seen in my model list on github copilot enterprise ai settings?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48392680)) "NONE of the models announced are available for use even in the microsoft foundry" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48385889)) - Training data not published (2 comments in the sample): "their training data (as they claimed) is very clean, without any synthetic datasets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48376217)) "Well still no list nor publication of the training data." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380967)) ## Why people recommend it - Strong SWE-bench Pro score for its size (3 comments in the sample): "MAI-Code-1-Flash scored 51.2% on SWE-bench Pro vs. Haiku's 35.2% which we see as a pretty big leap." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380587)) "That high a score for 5B params is pretty good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375053)) "Microsoft's result is quite good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374993)) - On par with Qwen, Gemma, and Luna (3 comments in the sample): "Mai-Code-1.1-Flash seems like a really good cooperative player to GPT 5.6 Sol" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49340605)) "this is in the range of Qwen 3.6, Gemma 4, Nemotron 3 Super, and the like" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48376603)) "MAI-Code-1.1-Flash is on par with OpenAI's Luna line of models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50001669)) - Fast and solid on simple tasks (2 comments in the sample): "MAI Code 1.1 is also solid and fast for non-complex tasks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49408259)) "MAI fixed it in one shot with less than 70k tokens" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48839301)) ## Other coding models people recommend - [Cursor Composer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/composer-2-5/): 157 recommend, 41 mixed, 68 criticize - [Qwen3-Coder](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen3-coder-next/): 122 recommend, 32 mixed, 44 criticize - [GPT-5.3-Codex](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gpt-5-3-codex/): 105 recommend, 26 mixed, 70 criticize - [Meta Muse Glimmer 30B](https://hackerapproved.com/p/meta-muse-glimmer/): 52 recommend, 14 mixed, 14 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "MAI-Code-1-Flash by Microsoft", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mai-code-1-flash/ (9 recommend, 5 mixed, 13 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.