# Synthetic

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/synthetic/

14 people recommended Synthetic in Hacker News comments, 3 had mixed feelings and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 12 months, in 18 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a cheap flat-rate subscription for open-model LLMs with generous limits and transparent pricing. Main caveat: base plan allows only one concurrent request.

Summary written by Claude from 22 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Good value for the money (4 comments in the sample): "Definitely the best $ value for me considering the reasonable performance of GLM5.2." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630018)) "results are top notch for $60/mo, speed is fast" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45787123)) "insane value for this price" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217672))
- Responsive team, no downtime (2 comments in the sample): "their team is responsive, no downtime or any issue for the last 6 months." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46978541)) "their team is responsive, no downtime or any issue for the last 6 months" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46896420))
- Transparent about usage and pricing (1 comment in the sample): "Love both the approach and the transparency." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48756861))

## What people warn about

- Base plan allows one concurrent request (1 comment in the sample): "The base plan only allows one concurrent request at a time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48668390))
- Interface is pretty barebones (1 comment in the sample): "which is pretty barebones" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45908932))

## Other LLM APIs people recommend

- [Mistral](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mistral-large-4/): 206 recommend, 81 mixed, 205 criticize
- [DeepSeek API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-api/): 147 recommend, 17 mixed, 49 criticize
- [OpenAI API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openai-models/): 115 recommend, 41 mixed, 260 criticize
- [Cerebras Inference](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cerebras/): 63 recommend, 33 mixed, 47 criticize

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://synthetic.new/landing/home)

## 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, "Synthetic", https://hackerapproved.com/p/synthetic/ (14 recommend, 3 mixed, 1 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.