Mill build tool
Ranked 12 of 17 build systems by recommenders
Scala build tool praised for clean, declarative project setup and good results in hobby projects; critics say it has a learning curve and confusing errors.
Scala build tool praised for clean, declarative project setup and good results in hobby projects; critics say it has a learning curve and confusing errors.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: 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
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Praised as good and improving
“Check out mill from the link. It’s quite good.”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Java 26 is here, and with it a solid foundation for the future” “Nowadays Mill is even better in many cases.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “The Origins of Scala (2009)” “Mill build tool and thinks it is fantastic”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Scarf has moved away from Haskell”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Struggles with JavaFX and complex packaging
“TIL Mill, I've been in build hell trying to package a javafx GUI gradle project”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Java 26 is here, and with it a solid foundation for the future” “Even his own build tool struggles there despite the technical merits”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Scala Tutorials – interactive Scala 3 lessons in the browser”
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 | — | — |
| Mill build toolThis page | 9 | 2 | 82% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Even his own build tool struggles there despite the technical merits”
“mill will refuse to even start without this special line”
“Mill build tool and thinks it is fantastic”
“For more experimental/hobby projects I choose mill though.”
“this looks close to what I want”
“But it does have a learning curve and you may sometimes end up having strange error messages”
“TIL Mill, I've been in build hell trying to package a javafx GUI gradle project”
“Mill looks kind of nice on the surface but I haven't seen it in action in any serious project.”
“Check out mill from the link. It’s quite good.”
“Proceeds in showing a pipeline that does not seem simpler at all, and involves setting up a PGP key.”
“You describe what you want, not the 47 imperative steps to get there.”
“Nowadays Mill is even better in many cases.”
“you don't need to install Java at all”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.