Meson build system
Ranked 8 of 17 build systems by recommenders
Recommended as a friendly, readable build system, easier than Autotools and terse for common projects. Critics say it adds complexity and has weaker GPU support than CMake.
Recommended as a friendly, readable build system, easier than Autotools and terse for common projects. Critics say it adds complexity and has weaker GPU support than CMake.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 62%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Easy to use, straightforward
“I tend to find meson easy to use compared to all the others”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Recursive macros in C, demystified (once the ugly crying stops)” “I've found meson to be a much friendlier build system”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Microsoft confirms Windows 11 is about to change” “it seems very straightforward”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “C/C++ projects packaged for Zig” Concise configuration files
“Meson and such can be as terse as your Curl example”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Lightpanda migrate DOM implementation to Zig” “generally just a handful of lines of text”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Fast Cvvdp Implementation in C” Better than older tools
“Right at that time Meson appeared and I skipped the suffering.”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “C++26 is done ISO C++ standards meeting, Trip Report” “Meson and cmake are better than the GNU autotools”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Faster Than Ninja”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Adds complexity to build setups
“meson is better than what came before. But it adds complexity”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Nothing works and everyone is euphoric” “it's not fundamentally simpler or more powerful”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Is it time for a new Embedded Linux build system?” Weaker support than CMake
“Meson is indeed nice, but has very poor support for GPU compilation compared to CMake.”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “C++26 is done ISO C++ standards meeting, Trip Report” “It lacks the first party support cmake enjoys.”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “C++26 is done ISO C++ standards meeting, Trip Report” Another tool to manage
“Meson merges the crappy state of C/C++ tooling with something like Cargo in the worst way possible”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “C++26 is done ISO C++ standards meeting, Trip Report” “instead of dealing with CMake and Autotools, I now have to deal with CMake, Autotools and Meson”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “What is jj and why should I care?”
Other build systems people recommend
The four most recommended other build systems, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bazel | 79 | 41 | 66% | 12 | 3 yrs3 owners | — |
| GNU Make | 76 | 42 | 64% | 12 | — | — |
| CMake | 58 | 93 | 38% | 12 | — | — |
| Apache Maven | 44 | 42 | 51% | 12 | — | — |
| Meson build systemThis page | 16 | 10 | 62% | 9 | — | — |
What people said
25 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I'm aware/have used conan/meson/vcpkg/etc - doesn't change my opinion”
“Meson and cmake are better than the GNU autotools”
“which Meson does implicitly(magically)”
“it seems very straightforward”
“meson is better than what came before. But it adds complexity”
“it's not fundamentally simpler or more powerful”
“instead of dealing with CMake and Autotools, I now have to deal with CMake, Autotools and Meson”
“In many ways, I see Meson already being that but it hasn't really gained traction at scale.”
“cmake, meson/ninja, mesa, llvm and so forth”
“I find Meson's --help fairly useful, at least compared to the disaster that is CMake's.”
“it's been a huge quality of life improvement”
“To me it feels by far the fastest and I also have the fewest issues usually”
“It lacks the first party support cmake enjoys.”
“Meson is indeed nice, but has very poor support for GPU compilation compared to CMake.”
“Meson merges the crappy state of C/C++ tooling with something like Cargo in the worst way possible”
“found it rather inconvenient and inflexible”
“Right at that time Meson appeared and I skipped the suffering.”
“I don't even want to imagine doing it without ccache and meson”
“native mobile app development with tools like Meson, Ninja or debhelper is a breeze”
“Meson and such can be as terse as your Curl example”
“I am currently dropping all make/meson/cmake/etc based build systems”
“just installing Meson on Windows is so complicated it has its own special section in the documentation”
“generally just a handful of lines of text”
“I've found meson to be a much friendlier build system”
“I tend to find meson easy to use compared to all the others”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.