# WinDbg

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

11 people recommended WinDbg in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 12 months, in 9 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a capable debugger for Windows code, with deep analysis and time travel debugging, though critics find its GUI awful and hard to discover.

Summary written by Claude from the comments below.

## Why people recommend it

- Advanced debugging power for Windows (3 comments in the sample): "If you haven't programmed in Visual Studio or used WinDbg then you have not used a serious, high-end debugger." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260214)) "But windbg is still the king here, for the most advanced analysis of both managed and unmanaged code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711239)) "If you made a list of Microsoft bangers it's in the top 5 with probably windbg" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48320710))
- Time travel and record-replay debugging (3 comments in the sample): "Linux hasn't yet got anything remotely close to PDB symbol servers and WinDbg's record-replay debugging." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958509)) "WinDbg, ProcDump, Windows Performance Analyzer, ttd, graphics debuggers etc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46676970)) "windbg xperf driver verifier time travel debugging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49113772))
- Strong Windows developer tooling (1 comment in the sample): "as a dev there are things I really like (ETW + WinDbg immediately come to mind" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47231012))
- Well-made tool Microsoft put effort into (1 comment in the sample): "I think it's fair to say they really put some effort in it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49823281))

## Other debuggers people recommend

- [GDB (GNU Debugger)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gdb/): 20 recommend, 7 mixed, 14 criticize
- [RenderDoc](https://hackerapproved.com/p/renderdoc/): 9 recommend, 1 mixed, 1 criticize
- [RAD Debugger](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rad-debugger/): 6 recommend, 1 mixed, 0 criticize
- [rr by Mozilla](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rr/): 6 recommend, 1 mixed, 0 criticize

## 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, "WinDbg", https://hackerapproved.com/p/windbg/ (11 recommend, 2 mixed, 3 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

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