S2 Geometry
Geometry library in Developer tools
People recommend this Google spherical geometry library for its hierarchical cells, where parent cells always contain their children, and for being pleasant to use. Critics point to visual distortion of the cells and a lack of examples.
5 people recommended S2 Geometry in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 6 comments.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 2
The record
Recommended in 3 of 12 months
In 3 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
- Recommended in 3 threadsNeeds 5 or more, not met.
- The biggest thread supplies 40% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 6 of the 8 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Parent cells always contain children
“has the very nice property that parent cells do indeed always contain their children”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes” Pleasant to work with
“It was very pleasant to work with”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “HEALPix” Google-developed geometry library
“Also very cool: Google's S2 geometry”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “HEALPix”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Visual distortion of cells
“For my use case, the visual distortion of S2 was quite a no-go.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Version of Uber H3 in Rust” Lack of use cases and examples
“I tried and tried to use S2 in my company but the lack of available use cases and examples made it tough to adopt.”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Version of Uber H3 in Rust” Not particularly strong at either
“being not particularly good at either”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes”
What people recommend instead
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 | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manifold | 14 | 4 | 3 | 82% | 10 | — | Approved |
| S2 GeometryThis page | 5 | 1 | 2 | 71% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 8 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It was very pleasant to work with”
“Also very cool: Google's S2 geometry”
“has the very nice property that parent cells do indeed always contain their children”
“being not particularly good at either”
“I tried and tried to use S2 in my company but the lack of available use cases and examples made it tough to adopt.”
“For my use case, the visual distortion of S2 was quite a no-go.”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.