Pi: what 423 developers actually say.
423 Hacker News opinions from 335 developers, Nov 2025 – Nov 2026. 338 come from people who say they use it. Here is what they praise, what they complain about, and who switched.
The case for Pi, in one paragraph.
Pi earns 84% approval across 423 opinions. Developers praise its customization. In the last 90 days it sits at 80%.
Pick it if you
- Want to build your own extensions and subagent tooling
- Need multi-provider or local open-weight model support
- Value an open-source, vendor-agnostic terminal harness
Look elsewhere if you
- Need a lean install with few dependencies
- Want minimal setup and a short learning curve
- Are wary of telemetry and movement toward hosted services
Where it wins and loses.
Mentions across 423 opinions. Bars are counts, not votes; a tool can be both praised and criticized on the same topic.
View data table
| Topic | Praise | Complaints | Mentions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customization | 150 | 4 | 154 |
| UX | 36 | 7 | 43 |
| Cost & pricing | 29 | 5 | 34 |
| Reliability | 25 | 8 | 33 |
| Open source | 17 | 0 | 17 |
| Autonomy | 20 | 6 | 26 |
| Privacy & local use | 13 | 1 | 14 |
| Speed | 14 | 3 | 17 |
How opinion has moved.
Monthly approval, Jan 2026 – Oct 2026. Bars show opinion volume; low-volume months are still included but faded.
View data table
| Month | Approval | Opinions |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2026 | 100% | 5 |
| Feb 2026 | 84% | 32 |
| Mar 2026 | 91% | 16 |
| Apr 2026 | 96% | 38 |
| May 2026 | 91% | 27 |
| Jun 2026 | 85% | 55 |
| Jul 2026 | 84% | 68 |
| Aug 2026 | 79% | 68 |
| Sep 2026 | 74% | 36 |
| Oct 2026 | 83% | 71 |
What developers say.
Summaries are paraphrased. Each links to the original Hacker News comment.
Praise
4 selectedChose Pi over Claude Code for being open source, vendor-agnostic, and extensible; building subagent tooling in it.
Switched from Claude Code to Pi two months ago, praising its multi-provider support, visibility, and minimal bugs.
Qwen coding agents also work well in Pi, using only local open-weight models.
Has settled on Pi as part of their setup alongside Zed.
Complaints
4 selectedPi ended up a bulky mess, and its Homebrew install stalled after a very long dependency build.
Uses Pi, but has no faith in its security or maturity after dealing with its CEO.
Is trying to add MDM support to the Pi harness, and says it is not going well.
Calls Pi tinkering for its own sake; tried it for a few weeks and found it not worth the effort.
Questions developers ask.
Is Pi worth it?
Is Pi better than Claude Code?
Does Pi work with local models?
The data behind this page.
Developers give Pi 84% approval across 423 opinions from 335 authors, and 338 of those opinions come from firsthand use. Customization drives most of the support: 150 positive mentions against 4 negative, mostly for extensions, multi-provider support, and subagent tooling. Approval over the last 90 days is 80%, slightly below the overall figure. Monthly approval fell from 96% in April 2026 to 74% in September, then recovered to 83% in October while comment volume stayed high.
Every number comes from public Hacker News comments collected through the HN Search API. A language model tagged each comment for sentiment, first-hand use, topic and switches; a human spot-checks samples. No vendor can pay for placement.
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