Ask HN: Reddit vs. HN

I'm an avid Redditor that is migrating to HN. When I experience Reddit withdrawal (it's a thing!) I realize that in my experience HN is a much more intellectual community. By that, I mean that the general HN community seems more driven to teach and learn about all kinds of topics. Reddit has its fair share of that (with more diversity due to a larger user base) but intermingled with a slew of cat memes, etc. that really contribute nothing to my life. People in some demographics may use it to procrastinate doing work, but I am working on finding more productive ways to do so. Certain subreddits such as /r/personalfinance can be useful for life advice, however, and it seems that many more AMAs are done on Reddit than anywhere else.

Reddit is culturally focused to me, and younger and less intellectual&#x2F;cerebral. Of course, by saying that, I&#x27;m sure there are outliers that can be posted that show how reddit can foster the most intellectual discussion possible! By cultural I mean it isn&#x27;t much use for discussion about work&#x2F;programming, nor is it an effective news aggregator on any level, but it is a great way to find humorous or entertaining content or discussions on popular culture.<p>In honesty, reddit doesn&#x27;t attract a lot of the actually-hacking hacker crowd.<p>I go to reddit to see what consumers think and HN to see what producers think.<p>Reddit is more like an unbridled &#x27;id&#x27; of people in a similar culture to HN. Witchhunts, trolling, nastiness, low-effort posting, are stereotypes of reddits most famous and popular areas, and for good reason. Almost every community of any size on reddit is a pretty intellectually barren place (shout out to the outliers like &#x2F;r&#x2F;askscience).<p>It is what it is, but you go to reddit to talk about video games and popular culture and cat pictures, and you go to HN to talk about coding, web development, and the many topics surrounding it.

I&#x27;ve found quite a bit of convergence when it comes to skepticism, realism, pragmatism, criticism, and like qualities.<p>Where HN differs the most to me is the lack of jokes or comments that really aren&#x27;t directly related to the post. On Reddit, jokes, in-references, and memes are often very highly upvoted. On HN, that seems to be frowned upon and downvoted quickly.

In my experience, Reddit somewhat encourages snark and sarcasm, but you better be bleeding edge and perfect in your wit, lest you be criticized into reddit hell. Hacker news does a pretty good job of squashing most snark, sarcasm and humor which gives it a clarity of focus toward helpful discussion.<p>I think that this generally makes HN a much more pleasant, if slightly sterile place to hang out. In my opinion, that is a worthy trade off. I think the main critique I have of HN is that sometimes comments that are critical, but not necessarily mean get downvoted. Its a tough problem to solve though, so I can give it a pass. Maybe I should create a biometric mood ring that attaches your mood context with a post...

I see HN as a more professional version of tech subreddits with a higher standard in both content posted and discussion. I still use reddit to find some stuff but reddit is a lot more laid back and intelligent discussion is less likely to happen on that platform IMHO.

HN has always had a bit more spirit of being friendly to the next person even if it&#x27;s not always evident. The &quot;comic book guy&quot; tone is stronger on reddit.

My activity on Reddit has always been extremely minimal -- I have found the toxicity of interactions between peers to run rampant in most situations. I&#x27;ve only been an audience member in such situations (i.e., I was not involved in generating said situation, they are situations I&#x27;ve happened across -- often too late to make a difference).<p>The disheartening part, to me, was that certain individuals participating in &#x2F;r&#x2F;learnprogramming tended to be outright aggressive towards individuals who had legitimate questions -- questions I had myself when first learning to program.<p>While reddit seems to be the breeding ground for hate groups and public shaming, this is likely the minority (even if the minority seems rather large). I wouldn&#x27;t expect to see posts on HN whose entire purpose is to generate hate speech against women speaking out against how women are currently portrayed in games or for the purpose of shaming an individual new to programming for their lack of &quot;expert&quot; knowledge.

I&#x27;m a user of both and I&#x27;d say both are great but both have deep-seated issues that make me wary of using either at all.<p><i></i>HN<i></i><p>HN is wonderful in that you&#x27;re more likely to learn something from the comments and have an intellectual discussion. If you can get to the discussion fast enough. Or if that thread doesn&#x27;t magically die off. Due to the lack of a notification system on HN, there are lots of dangling, empty comments.<p>The problem is that HN is very much &quot;all or nothing&quot;. If you post an HN question, you&#x27;re either going to get 200+ comments with people discussing the minutiae or you get a 0 comment thread going.<p>Sharing links on HN is the same way. 90% of the userbase stays on the front page without even clicking &quot;next&quot; on the bottom that means that there are 20+ threads at any given moment but they usually stay static for hours at a time, giving no other threads any attention.<p>The upside is that self-promotion is totally okay. No one gives you shit for posting an article you wrote.<p><i></i>Reddit<i></i><p>I don&#x27;t personally spend too much time on &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming, but I do spend a ton of time on &#x2F;r&#x2F;webdev. The issue with Reddit is RULES. There are tons of rules, there are ruthless mods, and often, good content gets buried while terrible content makes it to the top. There&#x27;s an inherent mistrust in the system.<p>With that said, I found it more likely to get an answer to a question on Reddit than on here. And I found it more likely that people would discuss something I post. Basically, Reddit feels like there is more small-user generated content rather than big journalism taking over. For example, check the top links for HN, how many of those come from big newspapers&#x2F;online magazines that everyone knows? Now check Reddit, how about that ratio instead?<p>Basically, I feel like Reddit is more about users generating discussion and content while HN is more about users responding to a discussion or content. If that makes sense.<p>I use both, obviously.

I like Reddit for the smaller (particularly local) subreddits. But as a frontpage, HN is far more inviting to me. HN discussions are far more engaging and constructive; with Reddit, you&#x27;re competing with whoever can copy-paste a meme the fastest. (edit: typo)

If you stick to just the popular subreddits, you are doing yourself a disservice. Subreddit subscriptions are what make Reddit really nice.<p>If you are trying to compare &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming to HN, you really don&#x27;t understand the purpose of either I should think.

Biggest differences I notice is Reddit not only tolerates but it rewards jokes &#x2F; puns &#x2F; non-seriousness but on HN it&#x27;s really hard to avoid being downvoted when telling a joke. Beyond that I don&#x27;t think there is much difference; there is a hive-mind in HN just like reddit (and like any social experience; it&#x27;s human nature so impossible to avoid).<p>One thing I will say is on HN, after like 3 or 4 comments within 10 minutes I usually can&#x27;t post another comment again for another 30+ minutes (I&#x27;ve never been able to quantify the amount of comments required to trigger the throttle and how long it lasts). So it&#x27;s really difficult to have any type of quick, back and forth conversations &#x2F; discussions on HN but on Reddit, even though they have a throttle, it&#x27;s no where near as aggressive so it&#x27;s more possible there. I&#x27;m not sure the HN throttle is necessarily bad but I know I don&#x27;t enjoy its aggressiveness.

It&#x27;s totally different. HN has very little technical content compared to &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming. Some people here say that &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming&#x27;s userbase is less sophisticated than HN. In my experience this sophistication is only skin deep with regards to technical discussion. In the rare technical discussion on HN the form and number of smart sounding words matter more than whether the technical point is correct. It seems as if the people voting know less about the technical content they vote on. HN is just more of a startup and general topics discussion board than a technical discussion board. You can also see it in this thread: most people posting here talk about other subreddits than &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming, which indicates that they may not be programmers.<p>On the other hand, people are more polite and generally nicer on HN. Perhaps this is an inherent difference in the audience, or because the comment scores are hidden on HN.

Reddit is better if you want to focus your attention to certain topics such as &#x2F;r&#x2F;javascript or &#x2F;r&#x2F;reactjs, for example, and you&#x27;ll be certain that you&#x27;ll get all the relevant news (along with some noise).<p>HN is for general news, and new new things with deeper discussions. There&#x27;s lots of noise on HN too, if all you want is news or programming related things. Lately, I think, &#x27;intellectual-porn&#x27; has increased on HN (such as Wikipedia articles of mildly-interesting things), which I think are no different from cat pictures.<p>Quite often I spot something on Reddit, and then search HN for additional discussion.<p>(obviously you shouldn&#x27;t follow the default subreddits, which are optimized for maximum addiction for general population)

I use both, and treat them slightly differently. I&#x27;m a lot more passive with my commenting on HN.<p>When I do my comments tend to be better thought out, but I&#x27;ll often have an opinion on something and choose to not comment for various reasons. Maybe my opinion was a bit too harsh, maybe others have a similar opinion and have already voiced it in their words, or maybe I realize its off topic.<p>IMO this is both a good thing and a bad thing. Sometimes I find myself not commenting when I could truly contribute to the discussion. On the flip side, there&#x27;s also a lot less noise when trying to filter through the discussions.

I can spend hours on Reddit while I only seem to spend a few minutes on HN. On Reddit I go from &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming to &#x2F;r&#x2F;diy to &#x2F;r&#x2F;art, besides just looking at the first page. On Hacker News I only look at the first page. Once I&#x27;ve gone through it, I&#x27;m off to Reddit. The first page doesn&#x27;t seem like it changes that often, so I only check it once a day or so.<p>That said, the discussions on HN are usually about technical topics from technical people. It&#x27;s far more intellectual than Reddit where a lot of the comments are puns, jokes, and other off-topic nonsense.

I &quot;extensively monitor&quot; both channels and find that they have their own advantages and disadvantages.<p>When an important technology is announced, or there&#x27;s some important tech event, I really want to see what HN says first. It&#x27;s more likely to be a focused and civil discussion due to the way it&#x27;s moderated, and it&#x27;s extremely likely that an engineer involved in the project or its history will come and personally contribute to the discussion. When I read a huge HN thread on an important topic, I feel like I&#x27;m largely educated about what experienced thinkers and specialists on the topic would say.<p>That said, Reddit has more breadth. There&#x27;s not just &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming, there&#x27;s subreddits for every specific language, technology, and specialty. Some are better curated and moderated than others but it&#x27;s a deeper and richer set of information. There might occasionally be a story about OpenBSD around here, but reddit has <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;openbsd" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;openbsd</a>.<p>I probably follow HN more closely, but I do like to see what bubbles up in specific subreddits as well.

&gt; Specifically &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming vs HN.<p>HNers &#x2F;behave&#x2F; more knowledgeably about startups and software.<p>&gt; Is the user-base different?<p>No. White middle class men. Anything else is downvoted or not spoken of.[1]<p>&gt; Is it just differences in karma&#x2F;downvoting mechanics?<p>No, it&#x27;s the YCombinator brand name that&#x27;s making the difference. And the fact that HN is nowhere near as popular as reddit. (Popularity attracts even more white people, but especially those who would like to behave like spoiled brats.)<p>&gt; Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?<p>Yup. Find the right sub and you&#x27;ll be fine.<p>(Edit) [1] As an example, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9451652" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9451652</a> . Anyone other than that demographic, with some critical thought in them, have already abandoned the use of &quot;riots&quot; [along with its corrolary, &quot;thugs&quot;] to refer to the protests, and are using either #BaltimoreProtests or #BaltimoreUprisings . In that linked debate, not a single leading commentary disputes... wait for it... the very title.

i think the main advantage that reddit has over HN is the combination of breadth and specificity. there aren&#x27;t any categories or labels in HN and, as has already been discussed, people generally only see the front page. this leads to the &quot;social echo chamber&quot; effect that people have discussed elsewhere, meaning a lot of people read&#x2F;respond to the same ideas over and over leading to an incestuous breeding ground for thought&#x2F;commentary.<p>i prefer to create my own multireddits for content technical content i&#x27;m interested in discussing. one for languages, open source, web, mobile, or computer science theory. these would be impossible to find on HN but on reddit they often attract more serious comments (not perfect).<p>also, did you ask this same question on reddit? i&#x27;m wary of the implicit selection bias in asking for a comparison from HN users and not reddit. the users on HN who take the time to read and respond to something like this are more than likely to prefer HN to reddit.

There&#x27;s some overlap between the two, of course. Personally, I frequent both. I self-censor here in a way that I won&#x27;t on reddit, if for no other reason than to help curate the better SNR.<p>The psychology is a little different, here. Since there&#x27;s no equivalent of user-created and moderated subreddits, it&#x27;s hard to associate the same feelings of identity and ownership. As a result, ironic on account of the smaller userbase, I tend to think of Hacker News as a more public space than reddit. Hacker News is more impersonal and sterile, but in a good way. Reddit is the equivalent of bullshitting with the neighbors over a few beers and a barbecue.<p>Both are good. It&#x27;s hard to speak of my time here in terms of a migration, or switch from, reddit.

I&#x27;ve gotten so, so much out of the archives in the &#x2F;r&#x2F;cscareerquestions. It&#x27;s mostly cultural stuff, but I&#x27;ve learned a lot from there and &#x2F;r&#x2F;sysadmin.<p>When I went to Reddit without logging in (and saw the content of the standard subreddits), I was SHOCKED at how stupid it was. I frequent a bunch of smaller, focused subreddits and really enjoy it... most of the time. I have to say, I&#x27;ve never been scared to voice an opinion on HN like I have been on Reddit. This is a much more civil place, especially when I&#x27;m wrong about something.

Don&#x27;t let the layout fool you, reddit is a different beast.<p>Reddit is a versatile tool for building any kind of community you want. However, Reddit itself is not the herald of any kind of value. Like facebook groups, multi-purpose weakens meaning.<p>HN was born from the core values of YCombinator. It&#x27;s a tangible proof of the tribe built around hacking and entrepreneurship. Meaning and Visuals are tightly coupled. Even the language it&#x27;s written on (Arc) is an integral part of the overarching theme.

HN certainly has a lot more startup and non-programming content than reddit. In my experience there is also a better balance between &quot;early adopters&quot; and &quot;grumpy enterprise devs&quot; (proggit in particular tends to be dominated by the latter, e.g. a lot of cynicism towards Node.js).<p>I would like to say HN is simply generally more sophisticated, but some of my highest-voted comments on HR are sarcastic remarks (criticising the US seems to equal free karma).

Reddit caters to a broader range of people, so it is less focused. If you go to specific subreddits you can find great content and intelligent conversation. I&#x27;ve learned a lot from &#x2F;r&#x2F;swift and &#x2F;r&#x2F;learnpython.<p>HN would fit in as a subreddit on Reddit. In fact, I&#x27;d wager that if there was a subreddit &#x2F;r&#x2F;hackernews it would look almost exactly the same as this website.

Reddit seems to have a larger number of users and a broader range of topics. I don&#x27;t enjoy the discussions&#x2F;comments on HN, the answers are fairly predictable, and I mostly visit this site because I&#x27;m forced to.

Personally for me I do HN at work and Reddit at home.

I&#x27;ve gotten the impression (and more so recently) that astroturfing is a problem on reddit. Not so much on Hacker News.

&gt; Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?<p>I&#x27;d say that you are wrong to <i>irrationally</i> like&#x2F;dislike anything.

People on HN refer to it as an &quot;intellectual community&quot;. That should be you all the answer you need.

Reddit has a much wider user-base. I guess most of us on hn have a tech background.

Hacker news today looks like &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming 6 years ago.<p>As the population of any online site grows, you get the least common denominator. The smaller subreddits are still good, but &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming got too big.

My biggest issue with HN is the the automatic dismissal and downvoting of comments which discuss non-sexy legacy technologies. Reddit seems to be far more pragmatic about tech choices while HN leans heavily toward the dogmatic side.

I prefer reddit because I can browse by topic. I don&#x27;t like wading through the latest political news story, science of menstration, dolphin communication, etc that is on HN. HN often feels like r&#x2F;technology combined with r&#x2F;politics. That said the comments here tend to be higher quality but I still have to wade through a lot of noise.

&#x2F;r&#x2F;programming is a narrowly scoped -- it has to do with programming, whereas HN is more generalized.<p>Furthermore, there is a far wider variety of users on &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming. This increases the signal to noise ratio, and reduces opportunity for higher-quality content and comments to float to the top.<p>And, one cannot discuss HN and &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming without discussing the moderators -- they are the curators of content submitted and the comment discussions, after all. I would haphazard to guess that the similarities between the two groups are more closely aligned than the user-bases themselves.<p>As for my personal opinion -- I feel far more inclined to contribute to HN as my writing on &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming is more likely to be lost in the void, akin to pissing into an ocean.

&gt; Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?<p>It depends. Do you like a fatherly figure to make you do stuff for your own good even if you&#x27;re now in your thirties? Do you enjoy censoring yourself for the fear of being hellbanned? Do you get a kick out of seeing your comments become unreadable because you wrote something against the prevalent opinion? Do you mind being gently molded into an echo box of what&#x27;s hip right now in the Silicon Valley culture? Are you so focused on patting yourself on the back that you don&#x27;t realize that subreddits are actually different forums with different administration and moderation policies?<p>P.S.: do you like having to wait an unspecified amount of time before being able to post your comment because you&#x27;ve been suspiciously active lately?

It&#x27;s like compare Facebook and Twitter. Surely you can try compare them, but better just use whatever you like to use.