Devin: what developers actually say
We read every Hacker News comment from Nov 2025 – Nov 2026 that gave a real opinion on Devin. 9 of the 16 opinions come from people who say they use it themselves.
Developers give Devin 28% approval across 16 opinions from 16 authors, and 9 of those authors used it firsthand. Complaints center on cost, weak onboarding, and code quality: one user abandoned a two-day transpiler task after duplicated code, and others call it overpriced for enterprise use. The autonomy aspect draws 1 positive and 2 negative mentions. The recent trend is modestly better: September 2026 accounts for 6 of the 16 opinions at 42% approval, up from 0% in several earlier months, though monthly samples are small.
Pick it if
- Want to run many cloud agents in parallel across a team
- Already use ACP-compatible harnesses and want them in one desktop app
- Value the UX of team-managed agents and can absorb the cost
Look elsewhere if
- Need onboarding that gets an existing project running without handholding
- Are cost-sensitive or plan to run many automations
- Expect reliable output on long refactors with little supervision
Strengths and weaknesses
Each row counts opinions that mentioned the topic. Bars to the right of the line are praise, bars to the left are complaints.
How opinion has moved
Not enough monthly data for a trend yet.
What developers say
Praise
Complaints
Summaries are paraphrased. Each links to the original comment.
FAQ
Is Devin worth it?
Approval is 28% across 16 opinions, so most developers in this sample were negative. Fans point to parallel cloud agents and solid UX. Critics point to price and weak setup. The sample is small, so read it with caution.
Is Devin better than OpenAI Codex?
One author in this data preferred another tool, and that tool was OpenAI Codex. That is a single data point. It does not support a general ranking between the two.
Why do developers complain about Devin?
The common complaints are cost, onboarding, and code quality on long tasks. One user spent two days on a transpiler and abandoned it after it duplicated code. Several call it overpriced for enterprise use, and some say early versions needed heavy handholding.