Pick operating system

Shares rank 64 of 87 operating systems by recommenders

A long-running operating system and database that recommenders say they enjoy using and that was influential in its era.

8 people gave an opinion

recommend it: 7
criticize it: 1
approval share: 88%

Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 5 of 13 months

November 2025: recommended
December 2025: not recommended
January 2026: not recommended
February 2026: recommended
March 2026: not recommended
April 2026: recommended
May 2026: recommended
June 2026: not 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

7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
Recommended in 5 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

Enjoyable to use
“Love it all and we're still doing active development.”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: My family business runs on a 1993-era text-based-UI (TUI). Anybody else?”
“always had nice things to say about it”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “The Weird OS Built Around a Database [video]”
“I love every minute of it.”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving 100 terabytes of memory by optimizing 1.1.1.1's DNS cache”
Historically influential, ahead of its time
“it was the "Excel", and so much more, at the time.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell”
“its about time we resurrected this idea”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Composition Shouldn't be this Hard”

Other operating systems people recommend

The four most recommended other operating systems, 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.

Pick operating system compared with 4 alternatives
Product	Recommend	Criticize	Approval	Months	Owned	Badge
Windows	1,287	3,582	26%	13	10 yrs192 owners	—
macOS	1,041	1,928	35%	12	11 yrs183 owners	—
Linux	745	277	73%	12	19 yrs116 owners	Approved
FreeBSD	335	94	78%	12	20 yrs69 owners	Approved
Pick operating systemThis page	7	1	88%	5	—	—

See all 87 operating systems, ranked

What people said

All 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“it was the "Excel", and so much more, at the time.”

RecommendsComment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell”

“I love every minute of it.”

RecommendsComment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving 100 terabytes of memory by optimizing 1.1.1.1's DNS cache”

“Nothing ever seemed to go wrong with it.”

RecommendsComment from 20 May 2026 in “I've built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of”

“I had to run the backups.”

MixedComment from 19 May 2026 in “I've built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of”

“pick got grumpy when writing to NFS not to say anything about how the other database would feel about having it's data being messed with”

CriticizesComment from 9 May 2026 in “AWS data center outage hits trading on Fanduel, Coinbase”

“its about time we resurrected this idea”

RecommendsComment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Composition Shouldn't be this Hard”

“always had nice things to say about it”

RecommendsComment from 24 Feb 2026 in “The Weird OS Built Around a Database [video]”

“Love it all and we're still doing active development.”

RecommendsComment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: My family business runs on a 1993-era text-based-UI (TUI). Anybody else?”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.