# musl libc

34 Hacker News commenters recommended musl libc and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Small C library that makes statically linked, portable Linux binaries easy to build and ship. Main caveat: its allocator and some functions run slower than glibc's.

## Why people recommend it

- Static binaries that run across distros (7 comments): "command line tools are fine to link statically with MUSL, but as soon as you need a window and 3D rendering it's not worth the hassle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46764424)) "musl + lua + c library + all lua codes can produce single static binary for linux which I utilize a lot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50140380)) "static linking against musl. Though beware that many things are slower in musl, such as the allocator." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48990267))
- Independent of glibc version (4 comments): "MUSL is a better libc for companies making proprietary binaries" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517814)) "being independent of the distros glibc version" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488228)) "without having to deal with glibc hell" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481236))
- Smaller binaries and lower memory (3 comments): "Rust binaries have been substantially smaller on musl than standard dynamic linking to glibc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481863)) "I have noticed that for the stuff I write it appears to have a lower memory footprint" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49483011)) "musl will fit into memory and glibc won't" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488336))
- Easy to set up (3 comments): "it sounds like quite a reasonable price one might choose to pay for the convenience musl offers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49480872)) "It's fantastic. Relatively easy to set up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46765516)) "musl is by far the easiest way to do that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49483021))

## What people warn about

- Slower, especially the allocator (10 comments): "Maybe one could complain that musl is using an inferior allocator that is freeing then immediately reallocating the same address." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49134623)) "It's just a reality that musl is measurably worse at multiple threads allocating even in very polite conditions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49485026)) "musl without mimalloc has a 144% overhead, so most of the performance issues do indeed come from the allocator" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482234))
- Odd DNS and NSS behavior (3 comments): "especially around MUSL libc which I have had cause many strange downstream issues over the years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48196192)) "musl libc's DNS resolver, which can behave differently (thus confusingly) than glibc's" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48468912)) "you 100% need a systemd distro to get away from nss complexities that musl introduces" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48638138))
- Static linking compatibility not reliable (2 comments): "it did not function properly because the library I loaded still depended on libc functions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46767983)) "all the talk of statically linking with musl to get such type of compatibility is bullshit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46771287))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [glibc](https://hackerapproved.com/p/glibc.md): 29 recommend
- [Cosmopolitan libc](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cosmopolitan-libc.md): 29 recommend
- [Sp.h standard library for C](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sp-h.md): 11 recommend
- [GLib](https://hackerapproved.com/p/glib.md): 6 recommend
- [Lib0xc](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lib0xc.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "musl libc", https://hackerapproved.com/p/musl-libc/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).