# Sorbet Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/sorbet/ 12 people recommended Sorbet in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 12 months, in 6 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Criticized more than recommended: critics find its signatures verbose and its editor and gem support weak; those who recommend it cite catching type and nil errors in large Ruby codebases, reducing the tests needed. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. ## What people warn about - Verbose, ugly signatures (4 comments in the sample): "frankly both options looks ugly, and so does many of the alternatives like Sorbet signatures" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095490)) "its signatures are wordy and because it can't infer the generic type of a private method" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46386412)) "extra lines of sig code I now need to essentially ignore as I read" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46388821)) - Poor editor support (3 comments in the sample): "Sorbet doesn't even work in VSCode, some bugs are over 5 years old." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46348834)) "I don't think it ever solved "jump to definition" though." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618252)) "I was on VSCode/ruby-lsp and disabled sorbet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48837645)) - Painful to use and add (2 comments in the sample): "sorbet in the rbi camp is more powerful with static and dynamic analysis, but it's also painful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398902)) "trying to add types via sorbet has been miserable and useless" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47394742)) - Bolted on rather than built in (2 comments in the sample): "it's fundamentally an approach you would take if you had to build a type system around the language rather than in the language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46113567)) "They’re both bolt-ons and it shows, badly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46389220)) ## Why people recommend it - Catches type and nil errors (4 comments in the sample): "they are more than worth their weight in the way I can rely on them to catch typing and nilability goofs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46385071)) "It is a big win in avoiding errors, typos, documentation, code completion, fewer tests are required" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398798)) "it does provide a good deal of additional saftey, less testing, LSP integration is good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46382789)) - Proven in large codebases (2 comments in the sample): "I’ve seen large Ruby projects with hunders of developers working on it for >10 years with almost 100% sorbet coverage." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46068282)) "pretty battle tested tool to define inline types as ruby syntax and type check both statically and at runtime" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46382734)) - Typed structs and enums at boundaries (2 comments in the sample): "Ruby (via Sorbet or DryStruct) are all really easy to write all those data structures and code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48826357)) "T::Struct and T::Enums at API boundaries has been the sweet spot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46383234)) - Fewer tests needed (1 comment in the sample): "it's a huge boon IMO. The number of tests we don't need to write because of Sorbet is really nice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46385653)) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Sorbet", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sorbet/ (12 recommend, 4 mixed, 14 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.