# OpenAI API 166 Hacker News commenters recommended OpenAI API and 286 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.75 years (7 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for strong math and agentic coding work, simple prepaid billing and cost-saving caching, though critics worry about data privacy and spending limits that don't hold. ## Why people recommend it - Strong at math and proofs (5 comments): "They have a machine that is better than every human being alive at math that solves problems humans cannot even when working inefficiently." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104694)) "Turning a bunch of vague research directions and exploratory prompts into a formalized proof is quite impressive on its own." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49651069)) "They have invented a magic button that can tell you the long-awaited answers to the burning mathematical questions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50014298)) - Capable agents for coding and testing (7 comments): "Qwen and the OpenAI models are great, aggressive agents, but they're not as good as the anthropic models for human interaction." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201563)) "With absolutely no prompting they will bootstrap off information schema and extended description properties every single time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48616187)) "ran some profiling inside of Windows, captured a few GB of data, sifted through it, identified the guilty .dll's" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575513)) - Simple pay-as-you-go prepaid billing (5 comments): "Using Anthropic or OpenAI's models are incredibly straightforward -- pay us per month, here's the button you press, great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45968580)) "For my use case it will cost like $11 a month and we already have OpenaAI keys and accounts with billing in place." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985053)) "You can just stick a tenner in OpenAI though and it won't charge anymore than the credit you've put in" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45845033)) - Caching and flex tier cut costs (5 comments): "now that OpenAI's models are closing in, are cheaper for daily use and don't have those silly 5 hours limits" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49416208)) "For me, it works quite well for low-priority things, without the hassle of using the batch API." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47001241)) "We find OpenAI, Anthropic and Fireworks (which we use a lot) all have higher cache hit rates." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48197143)) ## What people warn about - Data privacy and retention concerns (6 comments): "If I was a company with a zero data retention contract involving OAI I would be asking for a third party audit of such claim of zero retention" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49614732)) "if you are a business using OpenAI models, I would highly suggest you do not because they are most likely looking at your code and IP" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48868683)) "it seems thoroughly absurd to think that the entire world should trust those two companies to adequately monitor the plaintext" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587226)) - Agents misbehave or overconfidently wrong (5 comments): "Sometimes the agent will forget to do some piece of work or invent a new bizarre way of doing things" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49638511)) "Currently the major mistakes that AI makes: Improperly rotated connectors (backwards USB port)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49736506)) "the (at least OpenAI's) AI model is cocksure and wrong, which is infinitely more infuriating than being a bit clueless and wrong" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768289)) - Spending limits and billing problems (3 comments): "the spending limit is meaningless without a hidden checkbox called “enforce spending limit,”" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49950313)) "OpenAI has removed that option and their "Project budget" feature turned from being a hard limit into an email notification" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46231930)) "how convenient that they are solving their accounting problems with taking away your money instead of doing a refund" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49189762)) - Identity verification for latest models (2 comments): "I just registered at platform.OpenAI.com two days ago for MCP Apps registration and had to do the Persona process! Now I could cry." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47103407)) "if one wants to enable the latest models in the OpenAI api you have to submit your details to their “identity provider”" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47473743)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Mistral](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mistral-large-4.md): 314 recommend - [DeepSeek API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-api.md): 171 recommend - [Anthropic API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/anthropic-api.md): 58 recommend - [System One Models by TypeSafe](https://hackerapproved.com/p/system-one-models.md): 37 recommend - [Claude API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-api.md): 30 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://openai.com/api/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "OpenAI API", https://hackerapproved.com/p/openai-models/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).