# Phel

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Phel and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A Lisp dialect for PHP developers, recommended for its Clojure-inspired design and recent releases. No criticism was raised in the quotes.

## Why people recommend it

- Clojure-inspired design signals good quality (1 comments): ""inspired by clojure" - is there a better signal for good taste and quality?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060081))
- Namespace syntax standardized in core (1 comments): "Glad to see the dot-separated namespace syntax being standardized in the core." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060208))
- Followed long-term, praised new release (1 comments): "I've been following this project for a while, congratulations on the release!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48093687))
- Impressed readers, glad not to miss it (1 comments): "I was impressed and pleased to see that I hadn't missed the boat on this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46004501))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Phel", https://hackerapproved.com/p/phel/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).