# Quarkdown

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/quarkdown/

9 people recommended Quarkdown in Hacker News comments, 9 had mixed feelings and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 12 months, in 3 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

7 of the 9 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “Quarkdown – Markdown with Superpowers”.

**Verdict:** Markdown extension with user-defined functions for layouts and styling, praised for clean syntax and a polished website. Critics say it adds many new commands to learn and breaks Markdown's simplicity.

Summary written by Claude from 25 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 24 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Clean syntax built on functions (3 comments in the sample): "Quarkdown's syntax design looks clean, especially the user-defined functions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935485)) "I appreciate the syntactic purity of "everything is a function" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931182)) "The language spec is amazing and styling is slick." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931533))
- Powerful layouts and customization (2 comments in the sample): "You can achieve any layout you want thanks to the .row, .column and .grid function." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924425)) "Flat learning curve for basic formatting, powerful customizations for the rest." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47929152))
- Polished website and branding (2 comments in the sample): "Looks nice, but also the website is really nicely done." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47927268)) "the website and branding are amazing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47929276))
- Easy to read and write (1 comment in the sample): "Easier to read, easier to write." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47928173))

## What people warn about

- Many new commands to learn (2 comments in the sample): "there's loads of syntax thrown in your face and you're like, man, I need to learn a lot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47932426)) "Soon you find yourself looking up all the odd new commands." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924176))
- Breaks Markdown's natural feel (2 comments in the sample): "It breaks the whole idea of Markdown - to be as natural as possible." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47932184)) "That extra asterisk is a poor design decision in markdown." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925690))

## Other markup languages people recommend

- [Markdown](https://hackerapproved.com/p/markdown/): 116 recommend, 25 mixed, 65 criticize
- [AsciiDoc](https://hackerapproved.com/p/asciidoc/): 24 recommend, 11 mixed, 10 criticize
- [Djot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/djot/): 15 recommend, 4 mixed, 4 criticize
- [reStructuredText](https://hackerapproved.com/p/restructuredtext/): 12 recommend, 7 mixed, 8 criticize

## 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, "Quarkdown", https://hackerapproved.com/p/quarkdown/ (9 recommend, 9 mixed, 8 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.