Tiny C Compiler (TCC)
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 18 c compilers by recommenders
Tiny, very fast C compiler people use for quick development builds and embedding. Caveats: generated machine code is poor and it is not a drop-in replacement for other compilers.
Tiny, very fast C compiler people use for quick development builds and embedding. Caveats: generated machine code is poor and it is not a drop-in replacement for other compilers.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Very fast compile times
“use debug mode and tcc compiler for almost instant compile times”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Using Python for Scripting” “tcc is 8x faster, twice as fast isn't doing it justice.”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “I Write Games in C (yes, C)” “~9x faster compilation - very useful during development”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Zig is so cool, C is cooler” - Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Designing a Language (2017)”
- Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “The Goose Programming Language”
Useful for quick test builds
“use debug mode and tcc compiler for almost instant compile times”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Using Python for Scripting” “~9x faster compilation - very useful during development”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Zig is so cool, C is cooler” “You can even use TCC to do quick test builds”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Designing a Language (2017)” Small compiler praised as great
“a great small compiler compared to C/Clang”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Fabrice Bellard Releases MicroQuickJS” “TCC is probably the most famous example”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Claude's C Compiler vs. GCC” Embeddable via libtcc and scripting
“I have used tcc as a scripting language in the past.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Small Programs and Languages” “based on libtcc (which is very fast)”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “The Goose Programming Language”
Other c compilers people recommend
The four most recommended other c compilers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fil-C | 160 | 60 | 73% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Claude's C Compiler | 39 | 83 | 32% | 5 | — | — |
| Visual C++ | 29 | 17 | 63% | 12 | — | — |
| Tiny C Compiler (TCC)This page | 22 | 3 | 88% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Microsoft Visual C++ compiler (MSVC) | 20 | 29 | 41% | 9 | — | — |
What people said
25 of the 29 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“TCC for example produces terrible machine code but I rarely see 3x size or performance diffs”
“And the original TCC code is not easy to understand.”
“I have used tcc as a scripting language in the past.”
“based on libtcc (which is very fast)”
“for those who run into tcc bugs, there are many still”
“Bellard did multiple breakthroughs: ffmpeg, qemu, tcc, jslinux.”
“This helps clean up a lot of stuff that I got wrong.”
“So far only tcc can do that.”
“tcc has this special exception”
“the quality is too poor to even replace tcc”
“a strategy I have used for sometime”
“tcc: error: file '/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1' not found”
“the most common dealbreaker is no thread local support”
“tcc is awesome but less suited for being a drop-in”
“I used small tools such as tcc, jimsh, eforth+muxleq, sacc, smu”
“TCC is a leaky shoot at limiting non-sandboxed apps permissions.”
“TCC is probably the most famous example”
“libtcc doesn't give you much control AST wise, you basically just feed it strings.”
“tcc is 8x faster, twice as fast isn't doing it justice.”
“without crazy optimizations (like tcc)”
“Adapting that would probably be a faster path to a full featured C compiler on esp32”
“a great small compiler compared to C/Clang”
“use debug mode and tcc compiler for almost instant compile times”
“You can even use TCC to do quick test builds”
“~9x faster compilation - very useful during development”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.