# Zigbook by zigbook

7 Hacker News commenters recommended Zigbook by zigbook and 41 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free open-source Zig introduction that some find on point. Critics say it is AI-generated, has errors and ignores attribution.

## Why people recommend it

- Doing the job for learning Zig (2 comments): "Some text in the book itself is odd, but I'll be a guinea pig and try to learn zig from this book" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45959350)) "It is doing the job and mostly stays on point, avoids the informative asides and humor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46096567))

## What people warn about

- Appears AI-generated, with LLM-style errors (6 comments): "These contain errors typically made by LLMs, such as suggesting to use features that doesn't exist" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45952581)) "The tool itself claims "Zero AI" ( https://www.zigbook.net/ ) yet is very obviously A-Lot-AI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095437)) "Glad this popped up on HN so I can avoid the AI hallucinations steering me off track." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45953055))
- Copied code without attribution, license issues (3 comments): "Them stealing code, claiming it as their own, refusing to give attribution and editing third-party comments" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143433)) "Zigbook is the one who clearly looks bad. The website is no longer up, even, now showing a DMCA notice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46136803)) "Not honoring the attribution requirement in the MIT license is a copyright infringement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095124))
- Deceptive authorship, sockpuppets, edited comments (3 comments): "sadly people like the prompter of this book will lie and pretend to have written things themselves that they did not" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45949672)) "editing user comments to make it look like they're saying something they're not isn't okay" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095256)) "'zigbook' also seems to be using other accounts as sock puppets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45969279))
- Repetitive examples and inaccurate technical advice (2 comments): "The repetitiveness of the shell commands (and using zig build-exe instead of zig run when the samples consist of short snippets)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45950142)) "These contain errors typically made by LLMs, such as suggesting to use features that doesn't exist" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45952581))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/crafting-interpreters.md): 60 recommend
- [Clean Code by Robert C. Martin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clean-code.md): 31 recommend
- [The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pragmatic-programmer.md): 28 recommend
- [How to Design Programs by Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/how-to-design-programs.md): 18 recommend
- [Mastering Emacs by Mickey Petersen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mastering-emacs.md): 17 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Zigbook&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

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