Site Reliability Engineering
Site Reliability Engineering by Beyer, Jones, Petoff and Murphyby Betsy Beyer and Jones, Chris (Computer engineer) and Jennifer Petoff and Niall Richard Murphy
Ranked 7 of 21 software engineering books by recommenders
People recommend it as a highly regarded, excellent reference on site reliability engineering, covering important reliability topics well. No recurring criticism appears in the quotes.
People recommend it as a highly regarded, excellent reference on site reliability engineering, covering important reliability topics well. No recurring criticism appears in the quotes.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Highly regarded, excellent authoritative reference
“Google also covers this well in their highly-regarded Site Reliability Engineering book.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “When Feature Flags Do and Don't Make Sense” “I have read parts of the Google SRE book”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “How to Not Die by a Thousand Cuts. Or, How to Think About Software Quality” “It looked like an excellent book”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “10 Years of the SRE book: Announcing the second edition” Covers important reliability topics well
“This is probably the most important thing in my opinion in a lot of scenarios and cannot be emphasized further.”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “10 Years of the SRE book: Announcing the second edition” “Google also covers this well in their highly-regarded Site Reliability Engineering book.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “When Feature Flags Do and Don't Make Sense”
Other software engineering books people recommend
The four most recommended other software engineering books, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mythical Man-Monthby Frederick P. Brooks | 56 | 3 | 95% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Designing Data-Intensive Applicationsby Martin Kleppmann | 37 | 1 | 97% | 12 | — | Approved |
| A Philosophy of Software Designby John K. Ousterhout | 28 | 1 | 97% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Code Completeby Steve McConnell | 14 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Site Reliability Engineeringby Betsy Beyer and Jones, Chris (Computer engineer) and Jennifer Petoff and Niall Richard MurphyThis page | 8 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This is probably the most important thing in my opinion in a lot of scenarios and cannot be emphasized further.”
“Stuff that was lacking from the first edition, that it doesn't seem like it will make it into the second edition”
“It looked like an excellent book”
“Google also covers this well in their highly-regarded Site Reliability Engineering book.”
“I have read parts of the Google SRE book”
“users typically don't notice the difference between high reliability and extreme reliability in a service”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.