# Project Valhalla Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/project-valhalla/ 14 people recommended Project Valhalla in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 12 months, in 12 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Brings value types to Java, removing the performance cost of small objects; people welcome the long-awaited change. Critics say it is slow, adds complexity, and may give smaller performance gains than hoped. Summary written by Claude from 36 comments. ## Why people recommend it - Long-awaited change finally arriving (4 comments in the sample): "can't wait for Project Valhalla, going into preview shortly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48898414)) "it's nice to see Valhalla finally beocming reality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596944)) "But Valhalla has been a veeery long time coming." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47417589)) - Thoughtful semantics and design (4 comments in the sample): "It transcends the binary understanding of object vs value and actually defines 4 distinct buckets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49121260)) "a beautiful specification that put semantics and performance payoff first and syntax seconds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49120007)) "Valhalla brings features that address key problems, and they didn’t rush to it either." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48598339)) - Major step for Java value types (3 comments in the sample): "with Valhalla design now being merged into the language (Java 28+) we get explicit value types" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49297792)) "Project Valhalla will be the most significant change to the JVM in a very long time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47417678)) "First step to an interesting direction of the language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48480930)) - Removes performance cost of small objects (2 comments in the sample): "they are really late to the party with this but it's good. The performance boost will be welcome" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48203997)) "Valhalla removes the historical performance tax on tiny domain objects." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199139)) ## What people warn about - Slow, bureaucratic, not yet mainstream (4 comments in the sample): "This beaurcratic development feels like turning a super-tanker that's connected to a hundred other super-tankers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48613348)) "Afaik Project Valhalla still hasn't become mainstream even after almost _12_ years at this point" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47716271)) "It's currently locked up by project Valhalla which is a bit of a meme." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49987723)) - Performance gains may be limited (3 comments in the sample): "At what cost? A key benefit of value types is improved performance but AFAIK Valhalla doesn't even let you pass them by reference." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48600443)) "to me this suggests that the performance gains from Project Valhalla in this Java will be minimal." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49462517)) "this is anyway an extremely limited perf enhancement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48598775)) - Wrong approach, unlikely to be default (3 comments in the sample): "I think this alone shows this project can’t ever be turned on by default" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48598336)) "Which is why this is the wrong approach. Again. This is a major misstep." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48600056)) "I fail to see the point of this entire project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48598972)) - Null safety and thread-safety concerns (2 comments in the sample): "So, this basically makes every value-object optional, adds extra overhead and makes code less safe to null pointer dereference errors." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48606786)) "It will make it really hard to extract a lot of the benefit of valhala if you can't make a thread unsafe value class." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599313)) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Project Valhalla", https://hackerapproved.com/p/project-valhalla/ (14 recommend, 2 mixed, 13 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.