# Nibble

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Nibble and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for clean, minimalist design and a compact, impressive compiler frontend. Critics note missing language explanations and call it nothing special.

## Why people recommend it

- Clean, minimalist, well-written design (3 comments): "it's very well-written. I really enjoyed the chapter about designing the instruction set." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48156864)) "Looks really neat and minimalist" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48133181)) "clean project, bookmarked it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48133450))
- Compact, impressive single-pass compiler frontend (2 comments): "A single pass LLVM frontend in ~3k lines of C with no malloc or AST is kind of wild." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48133332)) "Doing this in ~3k LOC C without malloc or an AST is honestly pretty impressive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48131747))
- Charming logo and enthusiasm (2 comments): "Brilliant logo. It tickles my brain." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48132329)) "Really loving this project tbh :D <3" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48210351))

## What people warn about

- Lacks explanations of the language (1 comments): "Love this. But no explanations about the language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48132524))
- Seen as nothing special (1 comments): "Good for a student work, but nothing special." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48145040))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

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