OpenAI Responses API
Hacker ApprovedRanked 7 of 10 LLM APIs by recommenders
Developers recommend it for agents that keep reasoning server side and beat Chat Completions; the main caveat is lock-in to OpenAI.
Developers recommend it for agents that keep reasoning server side and beat Chat Completions; the main caveat is lock-in to OpenAI.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 85%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Better agent behavior and performance
“we've consistently seen small, but statistically significant and reproducible improvements in intelligence with Responses API vs Completions”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “The Session You Cannot take with you” “With the responses API, the agent actually goes and does the things it's supposed to do.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “GPT-5.5 Price Increase: What It Costs” “works very well and feels like a leap forward in terms of performance”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “All your agents are going async” - Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Unrolling the Codex Agent Loop”
Better than Chat Completions
“we've consistently seen small, but statistically significant and reproducible improvements in intelligence with Responses API vs Completions”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “The Session You Cannot take with you” “the Responses API that OpenAI architected is superior to Claude's Messages API”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “OpenAI and Hugging Face partner to address security incident” “I generally prefer the new responses API (minus the closed/hidden stuff).”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “The Session You Cannot take with you” - Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Codex starts encrypting prompts, uses ciphertext for inference instead”
Simple, easy to script workflows
“this is refreshing DX compared to iterating all messages like we did back in '24”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “OpenRouter raises $113M Series B” “it works wonders to just script entire persistent workflows with a simple SDK”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API” “easiest is OpenAI Responses API with OpenAI function calling syntax”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Introducing GPT-5.5” - Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft Agent Framework”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Ties users to OpenAI
“OAI has been subtly pushing users away from chat completion and toward the endpoints that are possible to obfuscate”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Codex starts encrypting prompts, uses ciphertext for inference instead” “Responses integration will lock you into OAI much more deeply than chat completion integration will.”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Codex starts encrypting prompts, uses ciphertext for inference instead” “I generally prefer the new responses API (minus the closed/hidden stuff).”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “The Session You Cannot take with you” Unclear docs and internals
“If you follow the docs, it will lead you down a lot of well-intended functionality, but most of it is thrown away in their most successful harness.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “OpenAI Agents API” “OpenAI has a "Responses" API which is different from their "Chat" API”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)” “the lack of clarity on the Responses API inner-workings isn't great”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Unrolling the Codex Agent Loop”
Other LLM APIs people recommend
The four most recommended other LLM APIs, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral | 314 | 245 | 56% | 13 | 6 mo9 owners | — |
| DeepSeek API | 171 | 56 | 75% | 11 | 1 mo9 owners | Approved |
| OpenAI API | 166 | 286 | 37% | 13 | 9 mo7 owners | — |
| Anthropic API | 58 | 126 | 32% | 12 | — | — |
| OpenAI Responses APIThis page | 17 | 3 | 85% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
23 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Responses with 5.6-luna+ and high+ reasoning level feels pretty close to the Star Trek computer experience for me.”
“Something approximating Responses API seems like the happy medium.”
“If you follow the docs, it will lead you down a lot of well-intended functionality, but most of it is thrown away in their most successful harness.”
“it works wonders to just script entire persistent workflows with a simple SDK”
“leveraging responses API preserves reasoning server side all the way till a final answer is made”
“I generally prefer the new responses API (minus the closed/hidden stuff).”
“we've consistently seen small, but statistically significant and reproducible improvements in intelligence with Responses API vs Completions”
“becomes a bit of an ordeal”
“the Responses API that OpenAI architected is superior to Claude's Messages API”
“Responses integration will lock you into OAI much more deeply than chat completion integration will.”
“responses api provided many benefits over chat completions”
“OAI has been subtly pushing users away from chat completion and toward the endpoints that are possible to obfuscate”
“this is refreshing DX compared to iterating all messages like we did back in '24”
“With the responses API, the agent actually goes and does the things it's supposed to do.”
“easiest is OpenAI Responses API with OpenAI function calling syntax”
“works very well and feels like a leap forward in terms of performance”
“I did this for my own agent the other week.”
“OpenAI has a "Responses" API which is different from their "Chat" API”
“the lack of clarity on the Responses API inner-workings isn't great”
“far and away the best in the industry”
“there's not even any need to store input items in your own DB”
“I've first used the Responses endpoint”
“I'd recommend coding to an LLM API (probably the OpenAI Responses API, which is sort of a lingua franca of LLMs now) directly.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.