# V programming language

20 Hacker News commenters recommended V programming language and 18 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend V for fast compiles, easy use, and batteries-included tooling; critics say it has not delivered its early memory-management claims and still has no 1.0.

## Why people recommend it

- Active, long-running open-source community (3 comments): "the fact that people write about his work and that he has an active community shows there is something to the project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49796147)) "Popular open-source projects are not static; they develop, change, and fix things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49907390)) "clearly a significant and successful open-source project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899310))
- Easy to use and get started (3 comments): "Ease of use is one of its attractive features. Very much geared towards getting people started" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49772220)) "It is super easy to use, so kind of attracts an audience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49744512)) "It was nice to use when I tried to dabble with it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743054))
- Fast compile times (2 comments): "Compiles in 0.2 seconds on my M5 (compared to Rust's 3.3 seconds)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47131995)) "It still compiles in 0.5s" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49765835))
- Strong docs, books and tooling (2 comments): "The language server is astonishingly good, the feature set as it stands very much batteries included" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46782127)) "V's documentation is constantly updated, the language has several books written on it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874640))

## What people warn about

- Claims not delivered as promised (5 comments): "the language promised automatic memory management without downsides, but then instead of implementing that magical feature" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746578)) "years later V still have not delivered on the initial claims that made the language even remotely interesting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48905162)) "since then the project has not delivered the grail, instead settling to be more of a mashup between go and C" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49775595))
- Memory management claims disputed (4 comments): "autofree is still stated to use a GC, which obviously disqualifies it from "memory safety without GC"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46355959)) "In any case, none of those stand out as "memory safety without GC" to me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46351828)) "didn't even have real type-checking at the time, nor did it free memory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743271))
- Hype and overstated claims (4 comments): "the issue has been 1) wildly misrepresenting the quality of the language in the present tense" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743735)) "Vlang is a ridiculous project that was entirely driven by hype" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48890685)) "mostly known from stating absolutely ridiculous claims" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364794))
- Still no 1.0 release (2 comments): "there's still no 1.0, installation tells you to compile the compiler form source and it still uses and depends on a C compiler behind it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49785395)) "It had like two releases after ~2-3 years of hype, too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49745708))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "V programming language", https://hackerapproved.com/p/v-programming-language/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).