Pylance
Ranked 7 of 7 language servers by recommenders
Microsoft's free VS Code Python language server, praised as the first good alternative to PyCharm and helpful in large projects. Main caveat: it is closed-source and proprietary.
Microsoft's free VS Code Python language server, praised as the first good alternative to PyCharm and helpful in large projects. Main caveat: it is closed-source and proprietary.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 36%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Helpful and satisfying for most work
“I've had it turned on for a while in a large web project and it's been very helpful”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “My (very) fast zero-allocation webserver using OxCaml” “I'm very satisfied with it for most things”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Elixir v1.20 released: now a gradually typed language”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Closed-source proprietary Microsoft code
“I don't like the Microsoft monoculture nor the importance of proprietary plugins (like remote development and pylance)”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs” “For the same reason Pylance etc. aren't open source”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)” “Pylance is MS-proprietary and so no one can use it”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Google Antigravity” - Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Announcing the Beta release of ty”
- Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “I switched from VSCode to Zed”
Other language servers people recommend
The four most recommended other language servers, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rust-analyzer | 19 | 21 | 48% | 8 | — | — |
| clangd | 15 | 6 | 71% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Rust Glancer | 10 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| gopls | 9 | 4 | 69% | 6 | — | — |
| PylanceThis page | 5 | 9 | 36% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
All 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“makes it pretty much unusable”
“For the same reason Pylance etc. aren't open source”
“I'm very satisfied with it for most things”
“It’s almost annoying how, and I’d like to figure out how to get it to use repos lint rules.”
“I've had it turned on for a while in a large web project and it's been very helpful”
“it being closed source is a travesty”
“I remember thinking wtf when Python import suggestions became disabled by default.”
“Pyright/pylance were a boon because they were the first non-pycharm good implementation”
“Microsoft crap that includes proprietary pylance”
“The one from microsoft (pylance IIRC) is better in my opinion.”
“autocompletion of typedict keys / literals from pylance is missing”
“Pylance is MS-proprietary and so no one can use it”
“This extension is not compatible with Antigravity”
“I don't like the Microsoft monoculture nor the importance of proprietary plugins (like remote development and pylance)”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.