# Rune editor 22 Hacker News commenters recommended Rune editor and 17 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. **Verdict:** A free, hackable code editor written in Go, praised for its clean look and vim-style workflow. Critics say it is immature and that its claims and visual design fall short. ## Why people recommend it - Looks nice and cool (3 comments): "Rune looks very nice so I'll certainly give it a whirl." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49663226)) "Rune looks pretty cool too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49663320)) "Project looks cool as hell" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49133165)) - Hackable Go-based editor (2 comments): "Exciting to have a hackable Go based editor." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666865)) "I'm happy to see a Go based editor. However this days I'm writing code mainly in typescript" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49664573)) ## What people warn about - Visual design looks weak (2 comments): "The themes are pretty bad right now IMHO." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49665871)) "The homepage is definitely giving "designed by an LLM"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50217566)) - Claims overstated or unsupported (2 comments): "the blog post makes implied claims of equivalence with moderate investment" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49664923)) "the claims implied don't stand up to scrutiny" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49664777)) - Unclear purpose, niche audience (2 comments): "Anyone interested in this already uses emacs or vim+tmux." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49684051)) "I just don't understand the premise behind Rune" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125578)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Zed](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed.md): 700 recommend - [GNU Emacs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/emacs.md): 648 recommend - [Vim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vim.md): 513 recommend - [Visual Studio Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio-code.md): 485 recommend - [Neovim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neovim.md): 295 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Rune editor", https://hackerapproved.com/p/rune/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).