{"slug": "desmos", "name": "Desmos", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 10, "warners": 0, "score": 4.878, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-11-05", "latest": "2026-05-22", "why": "Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 6, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "desmos.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.desmos.com/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Desmos"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 759698512, "item_id": 47481157, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481157", "by": "fasterik", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser.", "excerpt": "Is there actually a use case for graphing calculators anymore? Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser. In any professional capacity you would be using MATLAB, Mathematica, or the scientific Python ecosystem. I mostly remember playing games on my TI-84 in high school. We used it in class maybe once or twice. None of my college classes allowed graphing calculators on tests, so ironically I h", "context": "", "use_case": "graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zero ZGC4: A Better Graphing Calculator for School and Beyond"}, {"id": 749927200, "item_id": 46870450, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870450", "by": "voidUpdate", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use desmos for things where graphs would give more insight", "excerpt": "I still use my casio fx-83gtx from time to time, if I'm doing something especially complicated. Having a physical devices feels nicer than using windows calculator or my phone. I use desmos for things where graphs would give more insight, and wolfram alpha where I need more than the specific answer, and some information around it might be useful", "context": "", "use_case": "graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you still physical calculators?"}, {"id": 733198800, "item_id": 45824925, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45824925", "by": "roywiggins", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Desmos has a nice renderer too:", "excerpt": "Desmos has a nice renderer too: https://www.desmos.com/3d", "context": "", "use_case": "3D graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The shadows lurking in the equations"}, {"id": 733191824, "item_id": 45824489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45824489", "by": "roywiggins", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "People can play with graphing these in 3D and 2D here:", "excerpt": "People can play with graphing these in 3D and 2D here: https://c3d.libretexts.org/CalcPlot3D/index.html https://www.desmos.com/3d", "context": "", "use_case": "3D graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The shadows lurking in the equations"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "knaik94", "context": "tutors advanced math and science", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46876935", "date": "2026-02-03"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["graphing", "3d graphing", "graphing calculator demo", "graphing calculator", "graph rendering"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823141", "title": "The shadows lurking in the equations", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48166744", "title": "item 48166744", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46834977", "title": "Ask HN: Do you still physical calculators?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48234128", "title": "The case against boolean logic", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47979583", "title": "Ti-84 Evo", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47416149", "title": "Zero ZGC4: A Better Graphing Calculator for School and Beyond", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"compare": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 3}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 771853632, "item_id": 48240852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240852", "by": "amavect", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "https://www.desmos.com/calculator/1wfdtsuaav", "excerpt": "I have an axe to grind. Radix economy makes a shallow argument when calculating the per-digit information cost wrong. I need some functions to show what I mean. Calculate logarithms, calculate the number of digits, and convert a base-n unit of information into base-2 units of information. Finally, calculate the information cost: the number of digits, times the information needed per digit. ``` import ln, floor define", "context": "", "use_case": "Graphing calculator demo", "switched_from": "", "story": "The case against boolean logic"}, {"id": 771092752, "item_id": 48193297, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48193297", "by": "aaronharnly", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the Desmos calculator and math tools spun out to Desmos Studio PBC", "excerpt": "Yes \u2013 CTO of Amplify here. As a sibling poster notes, the Desmos calculator and math tools spun out to Desmos Studio PBC, which has a bunch of great people \u2013 with the goal of ensuring those remain available to all and not tied to a single curriculum provider. The Desmos Classroom tools for social, interactive classroom instruction, and another bunch of great colleagues, are part of Amplify, which together with Polypa", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 771058192, "item_id": 48191137, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48191137", "by": "jamessb", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "most of the Desmos \"math tools\" still exist under the Desmos name", "excerpt": "> Amplify (ne\u00e9 Desmos) It looks like \"Amplify Education, Inc\" and \"Desmos Studio\" (Public Benefit Corporation) are separate entities. The desmos website still shows that most of the Desmos \"math tools\" still exist under the Desmos name (graphing calculator, scientific calculator, four function, matrix, geometry, 3D), but that \"Desmos Classroom\" specifically has been renamed to \"Amplify Classroom\" [1]. The amplify usa", "context": "", "use_case": "graphing calculator", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 767696656, "item_id": 47981041, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47981041", "by": "chongli", "date": "2026-05-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "My Casio FX-260 Solar IIs [1][2] (I recently bought 3 more of them) cost me $5 CAD a piece on clearance at Walmart. No battery, a modern solar panel that works great even in dimly lit rooms, and a modern SOC with all the standard scientific calculations, scientific notation, engineering notation, significant figures, and all the basic stats calculations too (sum, mean, pop stddev, sample stddev, permutations, combina", "context": "", "use_case": "Graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ti-84 Evo"}, {"id": 759698512, "item_id": 47481157, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481157", "by": "fasterik", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser.", "excerpt": "Is there actually a use case for graphing calculators anymore? Desmos provides a great graphing program for free in a web browser. In any professional capacity you would be using MATLAB, Mathematica, or the scientific Python ecosystem. I mostly remember playing games on my TI-84 in high school. We used it in class maybe once or twice. None of my college classes allowed graphing calculators on tests, so ironically I h", "context": "", "use_case": "graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zero ZGC4: A Better Graphing Calculator for School and Beyond"}, {"id": 750030961, "item_id": 46876935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46876935", "by": "knaik94", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "If I ever feel myself limited by the 89, it's always been because I am trying to do something that would be better served by Excel or Desmos.", "excerpt": "I tutor advanced math and science and so have updated my daily driver along with whatever students were most likely to come across. In the past it was a ti 84 and then ti 89 titanium. But in the last decade schools have also embraced Desmos, a simplified version is even accessible on their standardized tests now. For personal use, I have an android emulator that runs TI 89 titanium. It hits the sweet spot for me in t", "context": "tutors advanced math and science", "use_case": "graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you still physical calculators?"}, {"id": 749927200, "item_id": 46870450, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870450", "by": "voidUpdate", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use desmos for things where graphs would give more insight", "excerpt": "I still use my casio fx-83gtx from time to time, if I'm doing something especially complicated. Having a physical devices feels nicer than using windows calculator or my phone. I use desmos for things where graphs would give more insight, and wolfram alpha where I need more than the specific answer, and some information around it might be useful", "context": "", "use_case": "graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you still physical calculators?"}, {"id": 747340577, "item_id": 46708786, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708786", "by": "umeedsto", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It uses Desmos for the graph", "excerpt": "I just added a new feature in MathGPT: type a prompt and instantly get a graph, plus the key points explained. It uses Desmos for the graph, and MathGPT adds the learning layer: x intercepts and y intercept vertex (when it applies) a small value table with sample points quick explanations in simple words Try it: https://mathgpt.today/graphing If you try it, tell me what would make it more useful: more graph tools, cl", "context": "", "use_case": "graph rendering", "switched_from": "", "story": "MathGPT Graphing: fast interactive graphs with AI help"}, {"id": 742371969, "item_id": 46398248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398248", "by": "calebm", "date": "2025-12-26", "stance": "compare", "quote": "instead of something like stylized latex like Desmos has", "excerpt": "I just recently intentionally made the decision to keep the equation input in FuzzyGraph (https://fuzzygraph.com) plain text (instead of something like stylized latex like Desmos has) in order to make it easy to copy and paste equations.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Always Bet on Text"}, {"id": 733198800, "item_id": 45824925, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45824925", "by": "roywiggins", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Desmos has a nice renderer too:", "excerpt": "Desmos has a nice renderer too: https://www.desmos.com/3d", "context": "", "use_case": "3D graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The shadows lurking in the equations"}, {"id": 733192208, "item_id": 45824513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45824513", "by": "amavect", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I programmed the examples into Desmos 3D", "excerpt": "I thought the same, so I programmed the examples into Desmos 3D (click the show/hide buttons on the left). https://www.desmos.com/3d/3divdux6jh Dropping the absolute value makes a better visualization. The 3D graph for Example 4 Shadow Line has an established name, a hyperbolic paraboloid. The color graph for Example 5 Phi Equation doesn't capture the odd symmetry F(x,y)=-F(-x,y). The color graph for Example 6 Underw", "context": "", "use_case": "3D graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The shadows lurking in the equations"}, {"id": 733191824, "item_id": 45824489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45824489", "by": "roywiggins", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "People can play with graphing these in 3D and 2D here:", "excerpt": "People can play with graphing these in 3D and 2D here: https://c3d.libretexts.org/CalcPlot3D/index.html https://www.desmos.com/3d", "context": "", "use_case": "3D graphing", "switched_from": "", "story": "The shadows lurking in the equations"}]}