# R 50 Hacker News commenters recommended R and 23 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 10 years (7 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Widely recommended for data wrangling, statistics and exploratory analysis, with strong tidyverse and ggplot2 packages; critics say it is hard to use for large production software. ## Why people recommend it - Strong for data wrangling and tables (6 comments): "The R programming language was a mess for data wrangling, but once it was popular, people built things like the tidyverse or the data.table library." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45861632)) "I don't think there is a better language for wrangling tabular data to be honest." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664252)) "If I want to wrangle, explore, or visualise data I’ll always reach for R." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46051385)) - Tidyverse and ggplot2 ergonomics (2 comments): "The R programming language was a mess for data wrangling, but once it was popular, people built things like the tidyverse or the data.table library." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45861632)) "the ergonomics of the dplyr + ggplot + the rest of the tidyverse are very tough to beat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49348260)) - Built for statistical analysis work (3 comments): "R is made for the way statisticians work and think, not the way computer programmers work and think" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052217)) "R really is/was the superior traditional data science language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548047)) "If you optimize on what is best for science then I think it is hard not to argue that Python (and R) are the best choices." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46049133)) - Expressive functional language with dynamic features (4 comments): "once you get used to the building blocks it gives you, it has all these powers to do very dynamic things in very easy ways" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938038)) "Rs copy on write, for example makes it a much more functional language without unintended side effects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46071223)) "The fundamental advantage R holds over other languages/libraries is expressions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49351796)) ## What people warn about - Hard to build production software (4 comments): "R definitely is an efficient DSL for doing stats this way, but it’s a painful way to build a durable piece of software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46050329)) "python can integrate into production systems whereas R was (and maybe still is) geared towards writing reports" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46123523)) "R is great for EDA, but really doesn't work well for iteratively building larger software projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052854)) - Clunky syntax and frequent API changes (4 comments): "The amount of ceremony and constant API changes just to have something as an argument in a function drove me mad." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46056238)) "writing custom loops (or functional equivalents with map or reduce) was pretty clunky last I tried it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052366)) "R has a clunky feel with a bunch of modules that can be a challenge to automate." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46057258)) - Niche, catered to statisticians (2 comments): "R was too late to the game and catered too much to professional math/stats/datascience people" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48068855)) "R is nice nice, but do they really want to learn a "niche" language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46049362)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend - [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend - [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend - [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend - [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "R", https://hackerapproved.com/p/r/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).