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Software performance & optimization: videos Hacker News recommends
Performance and optimization: profiling, benchmarks, cache efficiency, software bloat, latency, low-level optimization, SIMD, Casey Muratori, Handmade Hero, why software is slow. Below: every video in this topic that at least three HN users linked with real commentary, in at least three different months (94 talks, 10 demos, 7 explainers), best-scored first, with the comments on each video page.
- Programming language design 193
- Functional programming 225
- C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languages 163
- Python, Ruby & scripting languages 120
- Web development 160
- Software architecture & design 177
- Compilers, interpreters & program analysis 98
- Testing, debugging & developer tools 155
- Software practice, open source & careers 154
- Software (other) 36
- 15 HN recommenders 16 months 2017–2025S Видео с мероприятий {speach! · talkIt is HN's standard answer to why Python cannot easily get much faster, and is recommended by people who work on JITs and alternative runtimes.
- 7 HN recommenders 11 months 2017–2025HN repeatedly recommends it as an entertaining, mind-opening talk on allocator design and composable generic programming.
- 14 HN recommenders 12 months 2020–2025D DevGAMM · talkIt is the standard link in HN threads about software decay, lost knowledge and fragile technological civilization.
- 12 HN recommenders 10 months 2019–2025It is the standard recommendation for anyone puzzled by unexplained benchmark changes from tiny code edits, and for learning about causal profiling.
- 11 HN recommenders 11 months 2018–2024HN recommends it, long as it is, as an eye-opening rant on software complexity and why systems became so complicated.
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2018–2026HN repeatedly cites it as the definitive explanation of SwissTable, the design behind Abseil, Rust's hash map and Go's maps.
- 6 HN recommenders 10 months 2014–2022The go-to talk showing how Erlang let a tiny team run a massive messaging system.
- 13 HN recommenders 9 months 2020–2026It is one of the most frequently recommended videos on HN for old-school game development hacks under tight hardware constraints.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026The canonical recommendation whenever percentiles, tail latency, load testing or averages come up, described by some as life changing.
- 10 HN recommenders 10 months 2021–2026HN returns to it constantly in software performance debates as the primer on non-pessimization and why modern software is slow.
- 9 HN recommenders 9 months 2015–2026It is the go-to talk HN points to for data-oriented design and hardware-aware performance thinking, despite Acton's blunt style.
- 11 HN recommenders 8 months 2019–2023B bus · talkA perennial HN reference for arguments that software is getting worse and that hard-won knowledge is disappearing.
- 11 HN recommenders 8 months 2025–2026B Better Software Conference · talkHN commenters recommend it for its source-based history of OOP, though some dispute its account of Alan Kay.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2014–2024A perennial recommendation for anyone learning performance optimization, cited whenever hash tables, cache behavior or STL containers come up.
- 6 HN recommenders 7 months 2021–2026It is the canonical reference for the claim that modern software wastes hardware, and the proof-of-concept behind the Windows Terminal performance debate.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2022–2025K Kaze Emanuar · explainerHN loves the deep, hands-on look at N64 hardware quirks such as bus contention and the surprisingly large wins from low-hanging optimizations.
- 6 HN recommenders 6 months 2021–2025HN people recommend it to anyone wanting a practical sense of what CPUs can really do and why abstraction layers cost so much performance.
- 7 HN recommenders 7 months 2020–2026HN commenters cite it whenever zero-cost abstraction claims come up, especially for why unique_ptr is not free on some ABIs.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2020–2024HN treats it as the classic go-to for learning atomics and memory ordering, recommended over books.
- 7 HN recommenders 6 months 2019–2024HN recommends it as an entertaining talk that starts simple and goes deep on practical performance optimization.
- 7 HN recommenders 6 months 2018–2023HN treats it as the best primer on the event loop, praising its entertaining, easy-to-grasp visual explanations.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2013–2024HN regards it as one of the best technical talks, a deep and clear walkthrough of scalable lock-free hash tables built on compare-and-swap.
- 5 HN recommenders 6 months 2017–2025HN repeatedly points people to it as the best overview of low-latency trading engineering.
- 6 HN recommenders 6 months 2021–2025Recommended as the clearest explanation of why immutable data need not be slow, and as the introduction to Roc.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2015–2022HN recommends it as a fascinating explanation of queues, flow control and overload that applies well beyond Clojure.
- 2 HN recommenders 4 months 2017–2021S softdevteamuk · talkHN recommends it, and Cliff Click's talks in general, as practical wisdom from someone who built HotSpot and worked on Azul's VMs.
- 5 HN recommenders 5 months 2016–2023The default reference in Python performance threads for why removing the GIL is hard.
- 4 HN recommenders 5 months 2024–2026C ChimiChanga · talkHN cites it as one of the best talks on data-oriented design, applying struct-of-arrays and compact data layouts to a real compiler.
- 3 HN recommenders 5 months 2023–2026A frequent citation in debates about SOLID and Clean Code, representing the performance-first side of the argument.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2016–2018HN commenters cite it as the clearest case for why mobile devices are slow and why code-splitting and progressive web apps are needed.
- 3 HN recommenders 4 months 2022–2026HN points to it whenever benchmarking pitfalls and layout effects come up, as an eye-opening talk on how unreliable naive measurements are.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2013–2023The canonical recommendation for understanding the GIL, praised both for its clarity and for how well it explains a deep technical topic.
- 5 HN recommenders 4 months 2025–2026Pointed to as the in-depth talk on exception mechanics and code size for embedded C++.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2024–2025W Wes Bos · explainerHN points to it as the clearest frontend explanation of why McMaster-Carr feels so snappy, often contrasted with slow modern UIs.
- 5 HN recommenders 4 months 2014–2021A Andrew Adams · talkRecommended as the clearest explanation of Halide's ideas and of scheduling for performance.
- 3 HN recommenders 4 months 2021–2025HN points to it as proof that a small, straightforward renderer can beat Windows Terminal on speed and memory, whenever software slowness comes up.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2018–2026HN returns to it as the go-to talk on string internals, small string packing and why small percentage optimizations matter at scale.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2011–2026It is the go-to viral demo whenever HN discusses vibration, acoustic attacks, or sound affecting hard drives.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2016–2026HN points to it whenever undefined behavior comes up, as the best explanation of the reasoning behind UB, though some dispute its framing.
- 2 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2026Recommended as the best presentation on how modern CPUs run code, and why speculative execution matters for performance.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2022HN calls it a surprisingly fun, approachable talk on a hard problem and cites it in floating-point threads.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2021HN recommends the series as a thorough look at low-level game programming by someone with deep knowledge, offered free.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2020E EuroPython Conference · talkRecommended for explaining why Python is hard to optimize and the limits of making it fast.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2023N NOKIA Technology Center Wrocław · talkHN points to it as the go-to explanation of why memory layout beats pointer-chasing structures on real hardware.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017L linux conf au 2017 - Hobart, Australia · talkHN recommends it as an exciting look at how a browser can be rebuilt for performance and safety, including the WebRender ideas that fed into Firefox Quantum.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2013–2018Treated as the definitive explanation of Android's audio latency problem, showing it spans the entire stack.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2015–2022A favorite tech talk on HN for showing that hardware knowledge and generalist skills beat simply adding machines.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2024–2025J Jane Street · talkRecommended as a fascinating technical account of the optimizations behind uv's speed.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2025M Matthias random stuff · explainerUsed as evidence that CPU speed for branchy, dependent code has improved only modestly in 15-20 years, so software optimization matters.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2020HN recommends it as a detailed, entertaining look at the crazy optimizations compilers do.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2015–2020HN recommends it as an eye-opening primer on benchmarking and performance analysis, especially for people who have not benchmarked on Linux.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2022N Nemean · explainerHN recommends it as an approachable explanation that makes the famous algorithm finally make sense.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2009Praised as solid, research-backed advice on front-end web performance.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2019–2024Recommended in cache-algorithm threads as a fun, informative walk through caching strategies and ARC.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2026HN commenters cite it as the canonical concrete demonstration that modern developer tools got slower despite vastly faster hardware.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2023J John O'Neill · talkHN points to it as the best explanation of why R is so hard to optimize, often paired with talks on Python and used to explain what makes Julia fast.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2025Recommended as an accessible refresher on how modern hardware and caches affect software performance.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2018HN lists it among good resources on building text editors and as a recommended lunch-and-learn talk.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2019Recommended in Julia threading threads as an insightful, simple explanation of the new task scheduler.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2025Recommended as a great talk on solving fragmentation for C/C++ and runtimes like Ruby and Python without code changes.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2019–2021D Dyalog User Meetings · talkHN recommends it as a striking example of high-performance tree handling with array programming.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2012–2025Recommended as a classic JavaScript performance talk whose fundamentals about reflow and efficient code still apply.
- 5 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2025The go-to reference for why file operations are slow on Windows and how antivirus filters, not NTFS itself, are the cause.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2021Recommended as a quick, clear overview of allocators and arenas that also shows how Zig approaches allocation.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2020–2026HN points to it as the best explanation of simdjson internals and of why fast parsing is rarely disk-bound.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2021HN cites it as a concrete, worked example of data-oriented design and as an alternative to OOP in performance-sensitive code.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020Z Zürich Friends of Haskell · talkHN commenters call it among the best talks of 2020 for understanding Haskell effect systems.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2025M MattKC · demoHN admires it as a creative hack and cites it as the inspiration for later tiny-game and QR-code projects.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2023HN recommends it as a history and analysis of the end of scaling from a well-regarded systems speaker, and lists it among the best talks of 2019.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2021Recommended as a clear, practical introduction to atomics and lock-free programming in C++.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2014–2021M Meta VR · talkHN recommends it for Carmack's detailed engineering insight into VR rendering and latency challenges.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2022Cited for showing how Julia's metaprogramming can beat C and Fortran, along with sound advice not to overuse it.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2026H Hydra · talkRecommended as a good watch on how Go's M:N:P scheduler works and why it was designed that way compared with alternative schemes.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2022–2025HN points to it as the recorded talk behind the Netflix 800Gb/s slides and as a deep look at kernel-level optimizations for high throughput.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2009–2012Pointed to as evidence that Java can do fast, cheap message-passing concurrency, as an alternative to Erlang or Scala actors.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2023–2026G Greg Johnston · talkCited as evidence that DOM access is not the bottleneck for WebAssembly, and as an explanation of signals-based updates versus virtual DOM.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2018–2023V vexe · commentaryHN shares it as a concise critique of OOP from a respected systems programmer.
- 1 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2026HN points to it as the authoritative talk on Swiss tables, their design rationale, and real-world effects like Hyrum's law.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2025–2026B Better Software Conference · talkHN points to it as a practical example of solving a tricky multithreading problem, including using a spinlock to speed up a real-time physics solver.
- 1 HN recommenders 2 months 2016–2023C Casey Muratori · demoIt is cited as evidence that text scrolling on late-80s hardware was smoother than in many modern editors.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2024Recommended as a thorough, well-regarded explanation of hash table design tradeoffs and why the standard container is a poor choice.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2014–2015Used in software bloat debates as a measured look at why binaries got larger.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2023HN recommends Berger's talks as fascinating and cites Mesh as mind-blowing memory allocator work.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2020G Gopher Academy · talkPointed to as the authoritative source on Go's GC pause improvements, and later revisited when GC latency claims were challenged.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2016–2019S softdevteamuk · talkHN recommends it for specifics on how Truffle and Graal achieve strong dynamic-language performance.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2017Cited as the primary source on React with a custom rendering backend and on Netflix's Gibbon engine.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2022Recommended for treating benchmarking and profiling scientifically rather than by myth, with innovative tools.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2025Commenters cite it as the authoritative source for why the port is faster and why Go was chosen.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2022HN points to it as a detailed, captivating talk by the Noria author, including a good explanation of deduplicating data between maps using unsafe.
- 1 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2021N Nick Caston · demoHN uses it as concrete data in game engine debates, showing a custom engine far outperforming Unity at several times the effort.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2023–2026K Kaze Emanuar · explainerCited in discussions of sine implementations and whether lookup tables beat computation on memory-bound hardware.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2016–2021A ACCU Conference · talkHN recommends it as a careful, entertaining talk on low-level optimization that shows how textbook algorithms can be sped up.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2019–2025HN points to it as a concrete demonstration of object-oriented versus cache-friendly design and the performance effects of branch misprediction.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2023–2024E encukou · talkIt is the go-to explanation of how CPython's JIT works and why its design is so simple.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2015–2020HN points to it as the practical demonstration of data-oriented design, including structure packing and switching between AOS and SOA.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2016–2021A andrewmjenner · demoHeld up as the peak of demoscene hardware hacking, especially for its finale and for how good the PC speaker sound gets.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2021–2023HN commenters cite it as a sharp critique of SOLID, Clean Code and 'non-pessimized' programming, and as context for why software is getting worse.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2023–2024Cited as a fun, unconventional example of neural networks built from floating point error.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2013–2014Pointed to as the original talk by the author of the SIMD-in-JavaScript proposal, whenever SIMD on the web comes up.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2019–2020R Reboot Develop · talkCited in discussions of software getting slower and of efforts to reduce friction in programming.
Showing the 100 best-scored of 122. Use search to find the rest.
Questions
What is the most recommended software performance & optimization video on Hacker News?
How Python was Shaped by leaky Internals, Armin Ronacher, Flask framework by Видео с мероприятий {speach!: It is HN's standard answer to why Python cannot easily get much faster, and is recommended by people who work on JITs and alternative runtimes.
How is this software performance & optimization list ranked?
By HackerTube's score: the number of distinct months in which an HN comment recommended the video, plus half a point for every month with a strong recommendation. One viral thread counts less than steady recommendations over years.
Where do the videos come from?
From every Hacker News comment between 2007 and 2026 that linked a YouTube video, labeled by an AI model as a recommendation, a citation, a joke or a criticism. The list is published by HackerTube under ODC-By 1.0; this edition adds indexable pages and the comment context.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.