nom Rust parser library
Shares rank 6 of 7 parser libraries by recommenders
People find this Rust parser library useful and fun for complex parsing once learned, though critics call it verbose, baroque and heavy on result-handling code.
People find this Rust parser library useful and fun for complex parsing once learned, though critics call it verbose, baroque and heavy on result-handling code.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 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.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Verbose and unergonomic
“Nom was terribly verbose and unergonomic even by Rust's standards”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Revisiting "Let's Build a Compiler"” Baroque design
“I didn't mind it all that much although I noticed it's quite baroque.”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Revisiting "Let's Build a Compiler"” Much result-handling boilerplate
“still leaves a lot of code for result handling”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “Parser Combinators”
Other parser libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other parser libraries, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tree-sitter | 79 | 15 | 84% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Hardwood Parquet parser | 7 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| Lark parser library for Python | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
| Kaitai Struct | 6 | 2 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
| nom Rust parser libraryThis page | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I have been working on this for several years in order to explore the idea and have found it useful and stimulating.”
“sed-inspired parsing language (a DSL)”
“still leaves a lot of code for result handling”
“Once you understand it, it’s simple and parsing complex data becomes a _fun_ puzzle.”
“I didn't mind it all that much although I noticed it's quite baroque.”
“Nom was terribly verbose and unergonomic even by Rust's standards”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.