# Zerostack

25 Hacker News commenters recommended Zerostack and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Small, fast Rust coding agent with a minimal design, low memory use and built-in tools. Critics say it crashes without stacktraces and adds little beyond prompts.

## Why people recommend it

- Lean, fast, small memory footprint (5 comments): "The memory footprint is great, it allows finally running these coding agents in extra small instances" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48164926)) "Lean, fast tools really make a difference in the coding experience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166517)) "RAM footprint: ~8MB on an empty session, ~12MB when working" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48164613))
- Minimal, clearly defined approach (3 comments): "I think the minimal approach you took is the right path forward." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166924)) "works well and at least has a clearly articulated raison d'être" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48165722)) "this is what I've been waiting for" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48164643))
- Written in Rust, no interpreters (2 comments): "writing a coding agent in a compiled language makes a ton of sense" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166023)) "Rust, and not JS/Python, so no interpreters/VMs on top" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48164745))
- Integrated tools, prompts, Ollama support (2 comments): "that prompt-only design, with the integrated tools that come with zerostack, is more than enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166527)) "you can actually find some more interesting features such as Ollama support, integrated Prompts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48164973))

## What people warn about

- Adds little beyond templated prompts (3 comments): "For 3 years, your Lovable clone is something that Claude Code could make in a couple of days" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48171452)) "Without it, this is just a templating prompt system that the user has to remember to use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48168280)) "Compared to what LLMs actually consume, your agent makes zero difference" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48167807))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [GitHub Copilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-copilot.md): 571 recommend
- [oh-my-pi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oh-my-pi.md): 104 recommend
- [Grok Build CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok-build.md): 66 recommend
- [DeepSeek Harness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-harness.md): 63 recommend
- [Claude Code VS Code extension](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code-vs-code-extension.md): 31 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Zerostack", https://hackerapproved.com/p/zerostack/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).