Valgrind
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 6 sanitizers
Free tool that finds memory errors and leaks in native code, recommended as a routine check. Caveats: it is slow and sometimes reports false positives.
Free tool that finds memory errors and leaks in native code, recommended as a routine check. Caveats: it is slow and sometimes reports false positives.
37 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 29
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 13 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: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 29 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 13 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
Catches memory errors and leaks
“Leaks are trapped with tooling, and all you need is one dev in the team to be diligant to run valgrind”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “I Write Games in C (yes, C)” “Tools like valgrind can be user to validate that you won't have any memory errors”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “We stopped roadmap work for a week and fixed bugs” “use ASAN or Valgrind then leak detection is not difficult”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “C Is Best” - Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “C Is Best”
Routine check alongside tests
“I use valgrind or the sanitizers quite heavily to save myself from them”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “No strcpy either” “it's really worth adding all of them to a project if you can”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Miri: Practical Undefined Behavior Detection for Rust [pdf]” “a mandatory test pass running with UBSan/ASan/Valgrind”
Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “Rust Style Guide” - Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Xr0 verifier, guarantee the safety of C programs at compile time”
- Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “LLMs are making formal software verification feasible at a much larger scale”
Underused and under-appreciated
“Valgrind is a friend a lot of people haven't heard of for c/c++.”
Comment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Tips for more effective fuzz testing with AFL++” “even good old Valgrind is under-appreciated and under-used”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Walrus – a Kafka alternative written in Rust” “take advantage of all the older tools like valgrind”
Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Welcome to the Strip Mining Era of OSS Security” Saves headaches, useful starting point
“it helps immensely as a starting point same as valgrind helped in the past”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration” “saves a lot of headaches down the line”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “Hard Rust requirements from May onward” “Valgrind and similar tools also help.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “Compiler Can Undo Your Security Checks”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow, too slow for realtime
“For realtime applications, Valgrind and friends are pretty much a non-starter.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Python: Tprof, a Targeting Profiler” “Valgrind is dramatically slower.”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Fil-C: Garbage In, Memory Safety Out – Filip Pizlo – SSW 2026 [video]” “Valgrind can be pretty rough!”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Embedded Rust or C Firmware? Lessons from an Industrial Microcontroller Use Case” False positives and buggy behavior
“valgrind is super buggy and we spend quite a bunch of time working around valgrind false positives”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “Hard Rust requirements from May onward” “valgrind not handling a valid optimization correclty”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Two ARM64-specific compiler optimization bugs, in GCC 15/16 and Rust, hit curl” “which is a bit too strict with uninitialized values”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Two ARM64-specific compiler optimization bugs, in GCC 15/16 and Rust, hit curl” Misses some bugs and AVX512 instructions
“Valgrind and asan will allow a buggy access (like an OOB) to succeed if the resulting address is valid at all”
Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “I want extern "fil-C"” “the lack of Valgrind support for many of the AVX512 instructions frustrates me almost daily”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Intel's make-or-break 18A process node debuts for data center with 288-core Xeon”
Other sanitizers people recommend
The four most recommended other sanitizers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ValgrindThis page | 29 | 8 | 78% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Miri | 26 | 3 | 90% | 12 | — | Approved |
| AddressSanitizer | 21 | 4 | 84% | 7 | — | Approved |
| UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer | 12 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Go race detector | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 48 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Valgrind is a friend a lot of people haven't heard of for c/c++.”
“use automatic tools (Valgrind etc.) to verify the code”
“a mandatory test pass running with UBSan/ASan/Valgrind”
“Code is not done until its memory management is proven correct.”
“valgrind not handling a valid optimization correclty”
“which is a bit too strict with uninitialized values”
“Valgrind and similar tools also help.”
“using C safely is 99% just using Valgrind and some specific GCC or llvm flags and you’re done”
“Then run it past valgrind to double check if something looks suspect or is slowly leaking”
“Valgrind and asan will allow a buggy access (like an OOB) to succeed if the resulting address is valid at all”
“did you ever try to run it through valgrind”
“Valgrind is dramatically slower.”
“Know your compiler-flags and tools like valgrind and you'll be okay.”
“C's tools for this like Valgrind, instrumented allocators and LLVM sanitizers work with Rust too.”
“Nice to see a maintenance release focused on real regressions.”
“take advantage of all the older tools like valgrind”
“Valgrind can be pretty rough!”
“Always on static analysis + Valgrind integration. I used both without any reservation”
“They could have started with simple Valgrind sessions before moving to Rust though.”
“Combined with Valgrind integration, I don't see myself moving on anytime soon.”
“the lack of Valgrind support for many of the AVX512 instructions frustrates me almost daily”
“no developer has to be particularly diligent”
“Leaks are trapped with tooling, and all you need is one dev in the team to be diligant to run valgrind”
“For realtime applications, Valgrind and friends are pretty much a non-starter.”
“I remember reading about Google's work on various C++ tooling including valgrind”
“use ASAN or Valgrind then leak detection is not difficult”
“leaks aren't hard at all to find with the right tools”
“Also run test suites with valgrind.”
“it's really worth adding all of them to a project if you can”
“I use valgrind or the sanitizers quite heavily to save myself from them”
“it helps immensely as a starting point same as valgrind helped in the past”
“I haven't needed Valgrind or gdb in years, except some projects integrating C libraries.”
“even good old Valgrind is under-appreciated and under-used”
“Tools like valgrind can be user to validate that you won't have any memory errors”
“dynamic memory analyzers like valgrind with appropriate testing, you don't even need to do runtime checks”
“memory analyzers like valgrind work great”
“Static analyzers and things like valgrind exist for a reason.”
“It did help me finding bugs a number of times, but I also had to configure it a bit”
“valgrind is super buggy and we spend quite a bunch of time working around valgrind false positives”
“saves a lot of headaches down the line”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.