# PipeWire 70 Hacker News commenters recommended PipeWire and 20 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 2 years (4 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Replaces PulseAudio on Linux with broad compatibility, low latency and fewer audio problems. Common caveat: some users still hit bugs and find it hard to debug. ## Why people recommend it - Fewer audio problems than PulseAudio (12 comments): "Since Pipewire came out, I haven't had any problems with audio on Linux and I can dial the latency down to single-digit ms." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46435909)) "was a drop-in replacement for pulseaudio with (almost*) full compatibility and none of the stability issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286436)) "the transition to Pipewire seems over with and It's no longer a total mess of ALSA+JACK+Pulse+PipeWire" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096475)) - Drop-in PulseAudio and JACK compatibility (5 comments): "PipeWire speaks Jack so if built with Jack support, any Jack aware application will connect to PipeWire with no need to start Jack" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432595)) "was a drop-in replacement for pulseaudio with (almost*) full compatibility and none of the stability issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286436)) "instantly solved basically 90% of audio issues on Linux through its compatibility with Pulseaudio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46460775)) - Low latency with short buffers (4 comments): "Since Pipewire came out, I haven't had any problems with audio on Linux and I can dial the latency down to single-digit ms." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46435909)) "PipeWire with rtkit works incredibly stably with wildly short buffer lengths (low latency)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46302690)) "I finally have a low-ish latency audio system (enough for mixing, if not recording)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432352)) - Screen sharing and recording work (4 comments): "PipeWire fixed all issues with both screen sharing and desktop audio when it was introduced years ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45947202)) "you can get zero copy window and screen contents through PipeWire thanks to dmabufs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46001067)) "with pipewire ... haven't had any issues across Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46531844)) ## What people warn about - Complex and hard to debug (5 comments): "but pipewire is an order of magnitude more complex than pulseaudio." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791255)) "pipewire is a never ending pain in the ass full of "magic" behavior and weird bugs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46797153)) "sound just randomly broke (I had no idea why, debugging pipewire is a nightmare)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49061472)) - Bugs, regressions and occasional breakage (4 comments): "Pipewire is shonky, I have to restart now and then on my steam deck" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46804166)) "bugs in Pipewire/Wireplumber were still getting ironed out and were rendering my audio stack temporarily unusable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47489068)) "pipewire still has issues properly delivering audio on my system with all core load of ~50%" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45990504)) - Audio routing is hard to get right (2 comments): "has made getting my audio routing all correct (e.g. for streaming) much more difficult than it is on Windows" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46636646)) "Persistent input to output mappings in PipeWire is impossible without third party tools or custom scripts you run on boot." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46653541)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [JACK Audio Connection Kit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jack.md): 12 recommend - [ALSA](https://hackerapproved.com/p/alsa.md): 9 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "PipeWire", https://hackerapproved.com/p/pipewire/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).