# Org mode 175 Hacker News commenters recommended Org mode and 37 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 10 years (16 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A plain-text Emacs system for notes, TODOs, agendas, tables and literate programming that people find more capable than Markdown, though it's tightly bound to Emacs and poorly supported elsewhere. ## Why people recommend it - Agenda, TODOs, tables, tags built in (7 comments): "there is also org-mode: the agenda tracker, org-mode: the literate programming system, org-mode: the spreadsheet, org-mode: the website publishing system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568573)) "There are so many things built into org-mode and so many tools built around org-mode that you'll be able to find something that feels comfortable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570517)) "What's cool about Org isn't the symbols, but the semantics of a tree with tags, TODOs (along agenda & scheduling), and code blocks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568174)) - Strong literate programming with code blocks (5 comments): "org-mode is a way more powerful literate programming environment which can be exported to many different formats including markdown" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49470224)) "I find that with org-mode and extensions (such as in-line elisp) I have a _significantly_ more powerful system." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48072293)) "the best tool that qualifies for proper literate programming is probably org-mode with org-babel" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46180803)) - More consistent markup than Markdown (4 comments): "Org-mode is a extremely lightweight, likely more so than md, AND allows for complex levels of processing WHILE maintaining that lightweightedness." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569116)) "Org syntax's ability to serve for all the things Markdown currently does, while being more consistent and concise than Markdown" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566644)) "I don’t think anyone who gets really familiar with org can ever honestly say with a straight face that Markdown is adequate" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566657)) - Exports to many formats (4 comments): "org-mode is a way more powerful literate programming environment which can be exported to many different formats including markdown" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49470224)) "My university project was written using an unholy combination of org-mode & some workflow to create a beautiful LaTeX file" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48125424)) "I like Org-mode because it's easy enough to write, looks nice enough, can be exported in quite a few formats" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019143)) ## What people warn about - Tied to Emacs, little outside support (5 comments): "so tightly bound that it would be as well to simply embed Emacs in an application rather than extract org mode from it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570600)) "org-mode files weren't fully native Markdown files, which caused annoying friction when collaborating with others" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49465830)) "The only spec is a single implementation. Which is probably why approximately nothing else supports it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567373)) - HTML and LaTeX export gets complicated (2 comments): "I steer clear of its complicated html-compiling functions, as I have a hard time remembering all the different options and keybindings." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49941308)) "Expressing complex HTML or LaTeX constructs in org-mode is more complicated than writing the raw HTML or LaTeX." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568873)) - Complexity narrows who will adopt (3 comments): "it'd be masochistic to put up with that unless you've invested a lot into Org for other reasons" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568183)) "each "completely trivial" step adds complexity to the overall process, which makes it brittle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569870)) "You're right that Org adds features but it also shrinks the pool of people who will try this." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216980)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Obsidian](https://hackerapproved.com/p/obsidian.md): 447 recommend - [Notion](https://hackerapproved.com/p/notion.md): 91 recommend - [Logseq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/logseq.md): 52 recommend - [Apple Notes](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-notes.md): 39 recommend - [Tolaria](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tolaria.md): 34 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Org mode", https://hackerapproved.com/p/org-mode/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).