# .NET runtime

11 Hacker News commenters recommended .NET runtime and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Praised for speed and multicore scaling, and as the base for C# software. Most common caveat: it adds tens of megabytes and an extra install step.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong performance and multicore scaling (2 comments): "It scales to dozens of cores, maybe hundreds in a single process." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45905736)) "I ran benchmarks, showing 2-10x+ improvements." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45909847))
- Good base for C# software (2 comments): "Excel and Visual Studio, .NET Runtime and C#, Windows 2000 were among the best things for their time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46028758)) "The CLR is the reason most C# games are moddable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49657420))

## What people warn about

- Opaque runtime and GC behavior (2 comments): "It's a bit of a black box - who knows when it actually works?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47705732)) "The GC in DotNet is a source of major frustration for a tool like this." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50175826))
- Adds large size and memory use (2 comments): "Any .NET program is opting you into tens of MBs of binary/lib size and RAM usage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881308)) "you also got to have .NET runtime right? so it is bloat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024966))
- Extra install and dependency hassle (2 comments): "Then I'll need to install .NET runtime first, which I know I won't ever use for anything else." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46380832)) "some .NET or Visual C++ redistributable hell when you just get a cryptic error" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45912972))
- Confusing CLR naming changes (2 comments): "Microsoft management has decided CLR has a new meaning, C# Language Runtime." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48254899)) "Microsoft has forgotten what the C means" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48254808))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [.NET](https://hackerapproved.com/p/net.md): 293 recommend
- [BEAM (Erlang VM)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/beam.md): 80 recommend
- [Java Virtual Machine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/java-virtual-machine.md): 42 recommend
- [JVM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jvm.md): 39 recommend
- [GraalVM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/graalvm.md): 33 recommend

## Cite as

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