Pi: what developers actually say
We read every Hacker News comment from Nov 2025 – Nov 2026 that gave a real opinion on Pi. 338 of the 423 opinions come from people who say they use it themselves.
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.
Pick it if
- 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
- Need a lean install with few dependencies
- Want minimal setup and a short learning curve
- Are wary of telemetry and movement toward hosted services
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
What developers say
Praise
Complaints
Summaries are paraphrased. Each links to the original comment.
Pi compared
Best Pi alternatives, according to developers who switched →
FAQ
Is Pi worth it?
Most developers say yes. It holds 84% approval across 423 opinions, and 54 users said they preferred it to Claude Code. Complaints focus on dependency bloat, install trouble, and security maturity.
Is Pi better than Claude Code?
54 people preferred Pi over Claude Code, and 6 moved the other way. OpenCode is the main competitor: 35 preferred Pi to it, while 11 chose OpenCode instead.
Does Pi work with local models?
Yes. Privacy and local use drew 13 positive mentions against 1 negative. One user reported running Qwen coding agents entirely on local open-weight models.