# QuickBooks

12 Hacker News commenters recommended QuickBooks and 28 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Bookkeeping software whose bank transaction matching and integrations save time, though critics find its recent UI changes, ads and weak Mac support frustrating.

## Why people recommend it

- Integrates with banks and other tools (2 comments): "they integrate with many banks and expense management platforms to automate closing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134131)) "synced to your ledger (Zoho, QB, Xero)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47164179))

## What people warn about

- Intrusive UI changes and ads (3 comments): "QuickBooks has annoying suggestions that shift the whole UI and cannot be disabled. Misclicks now happen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571157)) "After a year with a disastrous UI change, spammy ads everywhere throughout the UI and by email" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47905563)) "It's far easier and faster to use than QuickBooks, I don't have to put up with ads" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47904129))
- Weak Mac and ARM support (2 comments): "not supported on ARM, although with some hacking you can get it to sort of work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48356586)) "Intuit has historically treated the Mac version as a feature-lagged port" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47322931))
- Needs manual checking of entries (2 comments): "If the quickbooks api says the sky is blue, you should double check just to make sure." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49190743)) "current version requires line by line verification for even simple forms and data sets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45962501))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Beancount](https://hackerapproved.com/p/beancount.md): 25 recommend
- [hledger](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hledger.md): 17 recommend
- [GnuCash](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnucash.md): 16 recommend
- [Xero](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xero.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=QuickBooks+Desktop+Intuit&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

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