# PowerShell

156 Hacker News commenters recommended PowerShell and 92 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for piping structured objects instead of text, with consistent, discoverable commands and strong Windows administration support; critics find it verbose, awkward to type and slow to start.

## Why people recommend it

- Pipes objects, not text (7 comments): "passing structured data instead of text is really nice because the data stays shaped/predictable/inspectable all the way through your code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46706429)) "Once you get used to passing objects between commands - not just text - the thought of using a Unix-y shell feels like visiting the past." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50191344)) "powershell begins to do something close to shine - the cli mixes data and commands in a way that we really shouldn't have to do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018907))
- Discoverable, consistent command naming (5 comments): "A follows-best-practices command/script has all the discoverability of MCP with all the composability and local execution of a CLI tool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47295346)) "Powershell cmdlet macros (and the resultant parameter consistency with flags and verbs) are a great example" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848811)) "I love knowing that a "Get-Foo" function in a library I've never before isn't going to have side-effects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50106476))
- Strong for Windows administration (3 comments): "PowerShell gives them an easy way to interact with Registry, event log, WMI and other facilities in a structured way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48961707)) "PS is really powerful for Windows OS level concepts and enterprise software that have good modules" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50191442)) "Powershell is still indispensable for things like deploying build artifacts to production servers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50191850))
- Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux (3 comments): "Yes it can be done and it's helpful for cross platform with windows but I wouldn't consider it a first class citizen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46842365)) "PowerShell is available for Linux and MacOS. Which means you can have the tool you like and run on a non-MS platform." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47132895)) "I hate powershell but if you actually need a quick, just works on win/mac/linux… powershell does the trick." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377635))

## What people warn about

- Verbose names and awkward syntax (6 comments): "it's mainly its verbose command names and new-to-me syntax that have made me put off learning it so far" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50191371)) "I have a distaste for the verboseness of PowerShell, but I also have concerns with the attempt to bake in complex objects into the pipeline." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45900651)) "PowersHell... yuck. It's like MS decided to reinvent bash but in the most bureaucratic and obfuscated way they could." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46933346))
- Odd quirks and gotchas (5 comments): "I am constantly bit by issues with filenames having [ or ] in them and end up having to pass -LiteralPath to everything" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530176)) "by FAR the worst thing is that often times you'll type a command and try to tab/arrow complete an argument" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381155)) "It is amazing until you run into one of these insane behaviors that somehow nobody ever fixed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381201))
- Slow startup and performance (2 comments): "Powershell is slow to start (~1-8 seconds on my PCs, even without a profile.ps1) and it performs pretty poorly in general" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46532596)) "PowerShell is so slow that you can both compile and run the equivalent C# program before PowerShell finishes launching." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624985))
- Weaker on Linux and macOS (2 comments): "Yes it can be done and it's helpful for cross platform with windows but I wouldn't consider it a first class citizen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46842365)) "a lot of the things that makes PowerShell cool on Windows doesn't actually work in Linux or macOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50191449))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Bash](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bash.md): 171 recommend
- [fish shell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fish-shell.md): 97 recommend
- [Nushell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nushell.md): 92 recommend
- [zsh](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zsh.md): 52 recommend
- [Xonsh shell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xonsh.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

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