# Spack

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Spack and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free HPC package manager that makes optimised builds with custom compilers easier. Caveat: Windows packages are less mature, and it integrates poorly with uv.

## Why people recommend it

- Optimised builds with custom compilers (2 comments): "you can get optimised builds with whatever compiler tool chain and options you need quite easily that way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45779567)) "Spack and EasyBuild make this much much easier." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47803863))

## What people warn about

- Poor integration with uv (1 comments): "doesn't integrate well with uv etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48234433))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Nix](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nix.md): 378 recommend
- [Homebrew](https://hackerapproved.com/p/homebrew.md): 271 recommend
- [npm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/npm.md): 161 recommend
- [pnpm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pnpm.md): 124 recommend
- [Cargo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cargo.md): 123 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Spack", https://hackerapproved.com/p/spack/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).