TidalCycles
Ranked 3 of 5 live coding environments by recommenders
Lets musicians compose and perform live by writing algorithmic patterns, with a strong community and Haskell-based power. Critics say installation is difficult and complex pieces can struggle.
Lets musicians compose and perform live by writing algorithmic patterns, with a strong community and Haskell-based power. Critics say installation is difficult and complex pieces can struggle.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 60%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Suits pattern-based composition, easier fugues
“the language lends itself particularly well to this kind of stuff as opposed to more traditional song/track structures”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “How to Synthesize a House Loop” “composing a fugue in the style of bach is much easier in tidal than in a DAW”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “How to Synthesize a House Loop” Full Haskell power and tooling
“TidalCycles has the full power of Haskell, longer history, and more advanced tooling”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Learning music with Strudel” “TidalCycles is a good example of another DSL built in Haskell”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Stop Designing Languages. Write Libraries Instead (2016)” Active, welcoming community
“Tidal Cycles is hardly languishing.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Learning music with Strudel” “A strong inviting community”
Comment from 22 Dec 2025 in “Programming languages used for music”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Difficult to install
“It's a full-on recipe, or a docker container.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Learning music with Strudel” “it was a massive pita to get installed”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Tidal Cycles – Live coding music with Algorithmic patterns”
Other live coding environments people recommend
The four most recommended other live coding 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic Pi | 32 | 12 | 73% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Loopmaster | 15 | 2 | 88% | 4 | — | Approved |
| TidalCyclesThis page | 9 | 6 | 60% | 5 | — | — |
| Cagire | 6 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| Dogalog | 5 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
16 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Once it was installed and working it was pretty solid”
“it was a massive pita to get installed”
“it directly benefits the Tidal/Strudel projects”
“both Strudel and Tidal Cycles seem to struggle on moderately complex compositions”
“TidalCycles is a good example of another DSL built in Haskell”
“Tidal can synchronize multiple instances via Link Synchronization.”
“A strong inviting community”
“it wasn't playing anymore”
“composing a fugue in the style of bach is much easier in tidal than in a DAW”
“The whole paradigm is going to encourage a very specific style of composition where repeating structures and their variations are the primary organizational principle.”
“the language lends itself particularly well to this kind of stuff as opposed to more traditional song/track structures”
“TidalCycles has the full power of Haskell, longer history, and more advanced tooling”
“Tidal Cycles is hardly languishing.”
“TidalCycles doesn't have the interactive code that shows you what is playing or have inline sliders”
“It's a full-on recipe, or a docker container.”
“It's a fun way to write music while on an airplane!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.