RAD Debugger
Shares rank 5 of 9 debuggers by recommenders
Free, fast debugger from Ryan Fleury, praised for responsiveness and compact arena-based code. One critic flags a memory cleanup race condition fixed with a sleep call.
Free, fast debugger from Ryan Fleury, praised for responsiveness and compact arena-based code. One critic flags a memory cleanup race condition fixed with a sleep call.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: 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
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Fast and responsive
“which leans heavily into arenas, resulting in extremely compact and fast code”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Understanding the Odin Programming Language” “Probably the most responsive debugger out there and it's built with an IMGUI”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “What I learned designing a barebones UI engine” Solid product with readable code
“to be convinced that it is a solid product”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Understanding the Odin Programming Language” “Check out the raddebugger code”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “Understanding the Odin Programming Language” Respected community and author's work
“Many people in or around the community have made great software over the years”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Launching the Handmade Software Foundation” “His work on the raddebugger is outstanding.”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Understanding the Odin Programming Language”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Race condition fixed with sleep
“Here's a complex memory cleanup race condition that's 'solved' with a sleep function.”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Understanding the Odin Programming Language” “Linking issue 735 suggests that you've misunderstood the part about a "Sleep"”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Understanding the Odin Programming Language”
Other debuggers people recommend
The four most recommended other debuggers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDB (GNU Debugger) | 29 | 16 | 64% | 10 | — | — |
| WinDbg | 14 | 3 | 82% | 7 | — | Approved |
| HyperProbe | 12 | 1 | 92% | 1 | — | — |
| RenderDoc | 10 | 1 | 91% | 4 | — | Approved |
| RAD DebuggerThis page | 7 | 1 | 88% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Check out the raddebugger code”
“Linking issue 735 suggests that you've misunderstood the part about a "Sleep"”
“Here's a complex memory cleanup race condition that's 'solved' with a sleep function.”
“which leans heavily into arenas, resulting in extremely compact and fast code”
“to be convinced that it is a solid product”
“His work on the raddebugger is outstanding.”
“Try out the popular raddebugger project, a complete build after checkout is about 3 seconds.”
“Probably the most responsive debugger out there and it's built with an IMGUI”
“modern desktop UI applications with all the modern desktop UI application bells and whistles”
“Many people in or around the community have made great software over the years”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.