NuGet
Shares rank 18 of 35 package managers by recommenders
People recommend NuGet for being easier to use than alternatives like Maven and for its built-in .NET support. Critics cite a confusing build setup and mistaken package removals.
People recommend NuGet for being easier to use than alternatives like Maven and for its built-in .NET support. Critics cite a confusing build setup and mistaken package removals.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 13
- approval share
- 52%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 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.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easier to use than alternatives
“Nuget/.NET ecosystem just handles it so much better.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “NPM packages from RedHat have been compromised” “NuGet is a million times easier to use than Maven.”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “.NET 10” “nuget are actually a lot easier to deal with”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Java 27” - Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “.NET 10”
Standard built-in .NET package support
“almost the entire DotNet community uses the NuGet package manager support built into the dotnet SDK binary”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Swift Package Index Joins Apple” “Has a decent build and dependency system (NuGet, dotnet run/build, declarative builds in XML).”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Explore union types in C# 15” Reliable Microsoft funding
“The exceptions to this rule are package-managers with robust financial backing, such as NuGet, which gets reliable funding from Microsoft”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Package Manager Where This Regularly Happens” “NuGet was pretty generous during the years”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “.NET 10”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Clunky build and project setup
“The build and dependency systems are an abysmal esoteric, poorly documented mix between csproj files, sln files”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Explore union types in C# 15” “the only thing that sucks about .NET is their package manager or the entire build process”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Would you choose the Microsoft stack today if starting greenfield?” “Oops I need to tweak this weird xml file with lots of options.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Just Fucking Use Go” Mistaken package removals in cleanup
“They removed 700 or so packages from NuGet proactively but those turned out to be false positives.”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension” “removed 700 or so packages from NuGet proactively but those turned out to be false positives”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension” “Microsoft removed 300 NuGet packages by mistake as they were trying to automate defenses”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News Often frustrating to use
“Nuget is complete and utter garbage.”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “.NET 10” “Had some headaches with nuget”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Memory Safety Absolutists”
Other package managers people recommend
The four most recommended other package managers, 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.
See all 35 package managers, rankedWhat people said
27 of the 29 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“nuget are actually a lot easier to deal with”
“Had some headaches with nuget”
“almost the entire DotNet community uses the NuGet package manager support built into the dotnet SDK binary”
“none of the big local C#/dotnet/nuget apps do”
“Nuget/.NET ecosystem just handles it so much better.”
“The devs don't even consider it a priority, too busy designing the feature”
“They removed 700 or so packages from NuGet proactively but those turned out to be false positives.”
“removed 700 or so packages from NuGet proactively but those turned out to be false positives”
“The exceptions to this rule are package-managers with robust financial backing, such as NuGet, which gets reliable funding from Microsoft”
“Oops I need to tweak this weird xml file with lots of options.”
“the certificate revocation checks for the dependencies didn't complete even after several minutes”
“it's disheartening to see so many (new) projects just NuGet this NuGet that”
“I also like Cargo better than Nuget, but that's a very subjective opinion.”
“Libraries need to be published into a package manager (NuGet) which is more friction than just importing from Git repos but it's not that bad.”
“The build and dependency systems are an abysmal esoteric, poorly documented mix between csproj files, sln files”
“Has a decent build and dependency system (NuGet, dotnet run/build, declarative builds in XML).”
“I also think that nuget should be namespaced”
“the only thing that sucks about .NET is their package manager or the entire build process”
“an enormous number of NuGet packages”
“The maker built NuGet. He don't need a resume.”
“the quality of packages on offer in PIP and NPM versus Maven and NuGet”
“NuGet was pretty generous during the years”
“NuGet is a million times easier to use than Maven.”
“you can use a nuget.config in your project and use your local packages fairly easy”
“Nuget is complete and utter garbage.”
“There was better tooling IMO around NuGET.”
“Microsoft removed 300 NuGet packages by mistake as they were trying to automate defenses”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.