Squeak Smalltalk
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 3 smalltalk environments
Free Smalltalk environment people use to learn object-oriented programming and explore ideas, with an image-based workflow that runs the same across platforms. Critics say the UI is pixelated and slow.
Free Smalltalk environment people use to learn object-oriented programming and explore ideas, with an image-based workflow that runs the same across platforms. Critics say the UI is pixelated and slow.
31 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 25
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 81%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 10 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 25 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Teaches object-oriented programming concepts
“learning Smalltalk will make you understand what "object oriented" actually means”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “Squeak and Scheme were mind expanding points of curriculum for me”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “I'm glad it was part of the cirriculum.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” Enjoyable for personal exploration
“still enjoy following the progress of Squeak and all of its spinoffs”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “a novel software development experience that I'm very glad I did”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Back to the future: the story of Squeak, a practical Smalltalk written in itself [pdf]” “used that a lot for my own personal exploration”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Programming peaked” - Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Back to the future: the story of Squeak, a practical Smalltalk written in itself [pdf]”
Image-based workflow, easy deployment
“Images run bit-identical on all platforms because they are byte coded virtual machines”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “Smalltalk's "wow" moment was the concept of a persistently running image”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “The image based workflow made deploying it surprisingly easy.”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Pharo 14” Runs on many platforms
“We used to run (around 2009) Squeak on more platforms than Linux, they all still work in the 32 versions.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “Images run bit-identical on all platforms because they are byte coded virtual machines”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
UI feels dated and slow
“The UI has been a huge impediment in my getting into Squeak development.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes” “The UI is still pixely and slow.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Squeak/Smalltalk 6.1 Release Notes”
Other smalltalk environments people recommend
The two most recommended other smalltalk environments, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squeak SmalltalkThis page | 25 | 6 | 81% | 10 | 10 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Pharo | 21 | 11 | 66% | 9 | — | — |
| Cuis Smalltalk | 11 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
29 of the 35 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Squeak is a modern, open-source Smalltalk programming system”
“check out the Smalltalk implementation Squeak”
“The image based workflow made deploying it surprisingly easy.”
“it has built in support for various data formats and easily made visualizations”
“it was quite heavy in RAM usage and I wanted something lighter”
“moved to Pharo to get better high resolution display support”
“Squeak and Scheme were mind expanding points of curriculum for me”
“Images run bit-identical on all platforms because they are byte coded virtual machines”
“We used to run (around 2009) Squeak on more platforms than Linux, they all still work in the 32 versions.”
“still enjoy following the progress of Squeak and all of its spinoffs”
“I'm glad it was part of the cirriculum.”
“Smalltalk's "wow" moment was the concept of a persistently running image”
“The UI has been a huge impediment in my getting into Squeak development.”
“everything looks good that I checked”
“The UI is still pixely and slow.”
“learning Smalltalk will make you understand what "object oriented" actually means”
“Squeak descendants are also not the only Smalltalks available.”
“The Squeak/Seaside version has served him well for more than a decade but I've grown tired of the setup.”
“I am just as likely to get the kids on Pharo or Squeak”
“Their Squeak, Etoys and Croquet fixed it completely”
“Their Squeak, Etoys and Croquet fixed it completely.”
“Smalltalk environments such as Squeak and Pharo appear to be great environments to play around with such ideas”
“Smalltalk is nice but it will never get past the toy language phase with that attitude.”
“a novel software development experience that I'm very glad I did”
“I was very excited by Squeak in the late 90s”
“used that a lot for my own personal exploration”
“It's not that squeak had too few ways of persisting & distributing code - it had too many.”
“Squeak overdid that aspect of it, such that over time, it became hard to prune older side projects”
“Squeak everywhere, but to also retain the "scripting" (light) commandline approach.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.