MiniZinc
Shares rank 2 of 6 optimization solvers by recommenders
Recommended as a high-level modelling language that targets several solver backends for problems like scheduling; the one critical comment says its vocabulary assumes prior background.
Recommended as a high-level modelling language that targets several solver backends for problems like scheduling; the one critical comment says its vocabulary assumes prior background.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 6 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
Works with OR-Tools CP-SAT
“I have used Minizinc + OR Tools CP-SAT to schedule virtual machines across hosts.”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Using OR-Tools CP-SAT for Scheduling Problems” “Found minizinc/CP-SAT recently and I’m obsessed”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Solving the Jane Street reverse engineering challenge” High-level language for complex problems
“tools exist to solve this problem but they are complex and hard to use for non technical folks”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Launch HN: Vela (YC W26) – AI for complex scheduling” “offers a high level modelling language that can target a few different solver backends”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Building a Procedural Hex Map with Wave Function Collapse”
Other optimization solvers people recommend
The four most recommended other optimization solvers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Z3 SMT solver | 24 | 2 | 92% | 9 | — | Approved |
| MiniZincThis page | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
| Google OR-Tools | 6 | 4 | 60% | 3 | — | — |
| OR-Tools CP-SAT | 6 | 1 | 86% | 3 | — | — |
| Gurobi | 6 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
All 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“AIs are good at writing zinc problems”
“I get lost in all the vocabulary and literature which assumes you already have a background in it.”
“Found minizinc/CP-SAT recently and I’m obsessed”
“I have used Minizinc + OR Tools CP-SAT to schedule virtual machines across hosts.”
“offers a high level modelling language that can target a few different solver backends”
“tools exist to solve this problem but they are complex and hard to use for non technical folks”
“It often bypasses the need to get bogged down in probabilistic markdown syntax”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.