# NotebookLM Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/notebooklm/ 78 people recommended NotebookLM in Hacker News comments, 21 had mixed feelings and 34 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 66 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People like it for summarizing and studying their own documents, with citations, fewer hallucinations and audio podcast overviews; critics find the podcast banter repetitive and the source-only focus limiting. Summary written by Claude from 53 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 51 of those comments still count. Claude agents reviewed it against the quotes on 2 Nov 2026. ## Why people recommend it - Summarizes and synthesizes documents (6 comments in the sample): "The pro tip is pasting such long ToS into NotebookLM and asking it to list e.g. top 5 surprising clauses" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47306688)) "it was good for synthesizing multiple documents in a way chatgpt or google's ai overview couldn't" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48947085)) "It not only gave me the fallacies in their reasoning, but also an excellent counter argument" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48333246)) - Audio podcast overviews (5 comments in the sample): "The damned podcast presented the material in a way that helped explained the topic more than my article did." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47738193)) "I'm actually pretty astonished by it's audio overviews and the insights/summaries it's able to do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46301821)) "I like the podcast features still for getting an overview or orientation on a new topic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48950963)) - Grounded in your sources (4 comments in the sample): "It generally will work strictly with only the uploaded doc and not pull in extraneous or even related material." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48099367)) "relies 100% on the sources you provide, such as PDFs, audio files, YouTube videos, Google Docs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46926478)) "notebook LM is still much much better at not hallucinating compared to claude and chatgpt" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48944975)) - Helps learning new topics (3 comments in the sample): "I used it most key to learn about history. There isn’t much damage if it got 1600s or 1700s detail wrong." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518161)) "I'd basically take the slides and throw them into NotebookLM and get way better lectures" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48393775)) "NotebooksLM does come up with decent quizzes, but nothing super hard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492582)) ## What people warn about - Podcast banter annoying, repetitive (5 comments in the sample): "NotebookLM/Gemini Notebook sorta does this, but the two-person podcast format is kind of annoying and it can't pronounce math." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937720)) "I hate sitting through the patter of how "we're not political, just reporting the views of the sources." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48942132)) "One minor thing that I find annoying is that the narrators switch roles in the middle of conversation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47512018)) - Limited to uploaded sources (3 comments in the sample): "you had to give it URLs or docs, you couldn't just have it search for docs and then incorporate them into your research" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48939492)) "notebooklm is insular and doesnt have the research and imaging features of gemini" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46319732)) "heavily biased to only use the sources i added and frame every task around them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46242448)) - Oversimplifies or misses key points (2 comments in the sample): "it illustrates the obvious, easy to understand things in the brief, and misses (or oversimplifies) most of the hard technical parts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933413)) "Otherwise you may very well be missing anything really surprising or novel." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514694)) ## What people recommend instead - [Gemini Notebook](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gemini-notebook/): 5 recommend, 2 mixed, 4 criticize ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://notebook.google.com/) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "NotebookLM", https://hackerapproved.com/p/notebooklm/ (78 recommend, 21 mixed, 34 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.