# .NET Native AOT 26 Hacker News commenters recommended .NET Native AOT and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People recommend .NET Native AOT for compiling C# into small, self-contained native executables that do not need the .NET runtime installed, with binaries comparable to Go. The common caveat is that reflection and some language features are restricted. ## Why people recommend it - Single-file binaries with no runtime needed (4 comments): "produced a single-file static binary which is similar in size to what Go would produce" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930341)) "Applications can be compiled as a single file with no dependancies." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48066172)) "C# no longer requires .NET installed or bundled inside exe." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46127676)) - Binary size comparable to Go (5 comments): "AOT .NET is an official first party distribution target that in my experience is on par with building a Go binary" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477762)) "You can already AOT compile .NET software to an executable to run on whichever platform you need, just like Go." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47721221)) "produced a single-file static binary which is similar in size to what Go would produce" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930341)) - Works reliably in production (3 comments): "overall I'm very happy with using .NET with Native AOT" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48831360)) "It's been working fine for a few years now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48601148)) "NativeAOT has worked wonderfully for us" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50177691)) - Better performance than before (2 comments): "the real win is predictable performance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47278345)) "It brings a lot of performance to .NET." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49762606)) ## What people warn about - Many gotchas in real apps (4 comments): "Existing code bases can be a pain, though, especially applications that heavily rely on things like C++/CLI and COM Interop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49649912)) "We do AOT at work on a fairly large app and keep tripping over corners." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46231055)) "as soon you try aot you just meet a wall of compilation errors" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930389)) - Reflection and features unsupported (4 comments): "show-stopping restrictions like "you can't use reflection" and "you can't use native sessions"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915239)) "That makes it confusing and fickle since not all language features work with AOT." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49653840)) "For us the showstopper was you can't use reflection." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45900617)) - Immature with limited ecosystem support (3 comments): "Last time I checked, NativeAOT was only for console apps, i.e. didn't support any GUI frameworks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797617)) "C# AOT is relatively nascent and not yet propagated through all of the ecosystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49890738)) "it's lack of maturity was explicitly cited by Anders as a gap" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893275)) - Quirky CPU matching and libc dependency (2 comments): "it's still a bit quirky because of the way you need to match CPU to binary" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49737661)) "That isn't truly self-contained. It still relies on libc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48067049)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [GCC](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gcc.md): 138 recommend - [Clang](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clang.md): 74 recommend - [Free Pascal compiler](https://hackerapproved.com/p/free-pascal.md): 38 recommend - [GraalVM Native Image](https://hackerapproved.com/p/graalvm-native-image.md): 31 recommend - [Cython](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cython.md): 22 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, ".NET Native AOT", https://hackerapproved.com/p/net-native-aot/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).