{"slug": "qnx", "name": "QNX", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 8, "commenters": 19, "warners": 1, "score": 8.09, "rising": 1.36, "first": "2025-12-06", "latest": "2026-10-16", "why": "QNX microkernel operating system, which is highly secure even when the software is never patched", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 10, "compare": 2, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "QNX microkernel operating system, which is highly secure even when the software is never patched", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "qnx.software", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.qnx.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["QNX"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 801900336, "item_id": 50118771, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50118771", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QNX keeps going on high integrity computing", "excerpt": "QNX keeps going on high integrity computing, a domain where hypervisors and microkernels actually matter. https://qnx.software https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/8.0/index.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "BeBox is a Haiku application that emulates Be Inc.'s BeBox"}, {"id": 793461904, "item_id": 49591369, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49591369", "by": "doublerabbit", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I want this taskbar", "excerpt": "I want this taskbar: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/qnx621/ So retro, so cool.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Which came first, Windows 95's taskbar or NeXT's Dock? Neither"}, {"id": 790746672, "item_id": 49421667, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421667", "by": "hn_submit", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QNX microkernel operating system, which is highly secure even when the software is never patched", "excerpt": "Another reason is that a lot of tech from 20 years ago uses the QNX microkernel operating system, which is highly secure even when the software is never patched. The problem is that most of these older devices are about to be replaced and many manufacturers have switched to Linux for their operating system. It's cheaper and requires no licensing, but far more insecure. It needs almost constant patching to stay secure", "context": "", "use_case": "embedded devices", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why older tech is sometimes safer from hackers"}, {"id": 778164768, "item_id": 48635298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635298", "by": "d3Xt3r", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was extremely responsive and could multitask without any stuttering", "excerpt": "The embedded version is, yeah. I was referring to their PC version though, which came with a full-fledged DE called Photon microGUI[1]. It was extremely responsive and could multitask without any stuttering, even on ancient hardware like the Pentium II - something wich other operating systems struggled with for a long time. In fact I would say Linux didn't \"officially\" resolve the issue until they introduced the EEVD", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop OS (PC version)", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy"}, {"id": 742697808, "item_id": 46418613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46418613", "by": "mpweiher", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Would love to play around with it on my Mac.", "excerpt": "Cool! I am a little confused about it both being a virtual image running on QEMU and requiring a very specific Ubuntu version as the base OS. Shouldn't anything that can run QEMU work? I used to do software development back on 386 with the OS on a floppy disk and really loved it. In fact, I ported my Objective-C compiler and runtime to QNX back then. Would love to play around with it on my Mac. Thanks!", "context": "", "use_case": "Developer desktop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 742388832, "item_id": 46399302, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399302", "by": "xvilka", "date": "2025-12-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "QNX doesn't stand much chance today too", "excerpt": "> They lost their developer base. Support of open source tools on QNX stopped. Right. These days it's better to invest into Redox OS[1] as a potential substitute for it (if work on real time capability). And with real time patches merged into Linux mainline[2] QNX doesn't stand much chance today too. [1] https://doc.redox-os.org/book/microkernels.html [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/real-time-linux-is-off", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}]}], "who": [{"by": "TacticalCoder", "context": "drives long distances", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48779199", "date": "2026-07-03"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["embedded devices", "car infotainment os", "desktop os (pc version)", "developer desktop os", "in-car nav and audio", "real-time os development"], "compared": [{"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398201", "title": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop", "mentions": 10}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173547", "title": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48594090", "title": "An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50111742", "title": "BeBox is a Haiku application that emulates Be Inc.'s BeBox", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49957117", "title": "Homa: The end of TCP for AI clusters [video]", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590408", "title": "Which came first, Windows 95's taskbar or NeXT's Dock? Neither", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 7, "warn": 2, "compare": 1, "recommend": 4}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801900336, "item_id": 50118771, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50118771", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QNX keeps going on high integrity computing", "excerpt": "QNX keeps going on high integrity computing, a domain where hypervisors and microkernels actually matter. https://qnx.software https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/8.0/index.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "BeBox is a Haiku application that emulates Be Inc.'s BeBox"}, {"id": 799339521, "item_id": 49958720, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958720", "by": "Animats", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "It's reminiscent of QNX's networking protocol", "excerpt": "Homa has been around for a while. Here's the 2018 paper.[1] The core idea: When a message arrives at the sender\u2019s transport module, Homa divides the message into two parts: an initial unscheduled portion (the first RTTbytes bytes), followed by a scheduled portion. The sender transmits the unscheduled bytes immediately, using one or more DATA packets. The scheduled bytes are not transmitted until requested explicitly ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Homa: The end of TCP for AI clusters [video]"}, {"id": 793461904, "item_id": 49591369, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49591369", "by": "doublerabbit", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I want this taskbar", "excerpt": "I want this taskbar: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/qnx621/ So retro, so cool.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Which came first, Windows 95's taskbar or NeXT's Dock? Neither"}, {"id": 790746672, "item_id": 49421667, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421667", "by": "hn_submit", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QNX microkernel operating system, which is highly secure even when the software is never patched", "excerpt": "Another reason is that a lot of tech from 20 years ago uses the QNX microkernel operating system, which is highly secure even when the software is never patched. The problem is that most of these older devices are about to be replaced and many manufacturers have switched to Linux for their operating system. It's cheaper and requires no licensing, but far more insecure. It needs almost constant patching to stay secure", "context": "", "use_case": "embedded devices", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why older tech is sometimes safer from hackers"}, {"id": 780467184, "item_id": 48779199, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48779199", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2026-07-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My car runs QNX as the OS for the infotainment.", "excerpt": "> They make the experience of being in the car way way better. > I literally will not buy a car that does not support CarPlay. I drive more than you, longer distances. I've been to Ibiza by car (with the car on the boat at some point, obviously), to the UK (with the car either on a boat or, later on, inside a train), I've crossed Germany at insane (legal) speeds to go to the end of Poland, I've been to Sweden, to And", "context": "drives long distances", "use_case": "car infotainment OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "CarPlay Is Additive"}, {"id": 778164768, "item_id": 48635298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48635298", "by": "d3Xt3r", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was extremely responsive and could multitask without any stuttering", "excerpt": "The embedded version is, yeah. I was referring to their PC version though, which came with a full-fledged DE called Photon microGUI[1]. It was extremely responsive and could multitask without any stuttering, even on ancient hardware like the Pentium II - something wich other operating systems struggled with for a long time. In fact I would say Linux didn't \"officially\" resolve the issue until they introduced the EEVD", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop OS (PC version)", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy"}, {"id": 777958850, "item_id": 48622428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48622428", "by": "d3Xt3r", "date": "2026-06-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Along with the QNX floppy[2], which came in super handy", "excerpt": "There was also tomsrtbt[1], which was a staple in my \"rescue\" floppy collection. Along with the QNX floppy[2], which came in super handy when using a cyber caf\u00e9 or a friend's PC, and you wanted to avoid all the keyloggers and malware. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt [2] http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy"}, {"id": 749457521, "item_id": 46841095, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46841095", "by": "hackernudes", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "QNX -- http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html", "excerpt": "DROPS, The Dresden Real-Time Operating System Project -- https://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/drops/ QNX -- http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html (or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44856046)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Genode OS is a tool kit for building highly secure special-purpose OS"}, {"id": 742697808, "item_id": 46418613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46418613", "by": "mpweiher", "date": "2025-12-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Would love to play around with it on my Mac.", "excerpt": "Cool! I am a little confused about it both being a virtual image running on QEMU and requiring a very specific Ubuntu version as the base OS. Shouldn't anything that can run QEMU work? I used to do software development back on 386 with the OS on a floppy disk and really loved it. In fact, I ported my Objective-C compiler and runtime to QNX back then. Would love to play around with it on my Mac. Thanks!", "context": "", "use_case": "Developer desktop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742598208, "item_id": 46412388, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46412388", "by": "mycall", "date": "2025-12-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Is this true? [0] No CVEs since 2011?", "excerpt": "Is this true? [0] No CVEs since 2011? [0] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-436/QNX.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742508752, "item_id": 46406797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46406797", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "as a geek, I love it", "excerpt": "We're geeks: I know my car is running QNX for it's nav and audio (and certainly some other things) and, as a geek, I love it. So thank you so so very much! (it's a Porsche from 2013 btw)", "context": "", "use_case": "In-car nav and audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742495328, "item_id": 46405958, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405958", "by": "Lammy", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QNX could only be an improvement in that regard.", "excerpt": "> If raising valid concerns that were not addressed by the linked website is FUD for you, so be it. Yes, it is. It's specifically called concern trolling: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concern_troll In this case it's because the mass-market operating systems with which QNX could compete already do the things you're \u201cconcerned\u201d about. QNX could only be an improvement in that regard.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742488368, "item_id": 46405523, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405523", "by": "jacquesm", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I would have been much happier with QnX.", "excerpt": "I've used VxWorks as well, yes, it was slimmer (a lot slimmer, actually), but I would disagree that it was more reliable. QnX supported a ton of hardware out of the box and if there ever was unreliability as far as I've seen it it was always comms layer related, never the core OS or any other bits that you could put next to VxWorks and compare on a functional level. You just required a much bigger SBC to run it, and ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742479584, "item_id": 46404974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46404974", "by": "compsciphd", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "compare", "quote": "that qnx demo disk had more usability overall than my disk", "excerpt": "that's not really true. In 2001 I built a single disk linux installation (with a handful of popular nics supported) with X (tiny X with vesafb support) and rdesktop + vnc as a thin client on floppy. I'd be honest and say that qnx demo disk had more usability overall than my disk, but one could easily have a usable text only linux bootable disk. Busybox and uclibc already existed back then. https://www.cs.columbia.edu", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742390032, "item_id": 46399377, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399377", "by": "Intralexical", "date": "2025-12-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "QNX is the backbone of the auto industry, and powers over 200 million cars on the road.", "excerpt": "QNX is the backbone of the auto industry, and powers over 200 million cars on the road. For the target demographic, I don't imagine they need to \"build trust\" any more than IBM or Microsoft need to build trust. That said, like IBM and Microsoft, they've also been on and off over the years about whether tinkerers, desktop, and other uses are welcome. So they probably could benefit from showing that this time they're o", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742389488, "item_id": 46399343, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399343", "by": "transpute", "date": "2025-12-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "275M cars with QNX", "excerpt": "$100M+ last quarter, split between QNX and endpoint device software, https://www.panabee.com/news/blackberry-earnings-q3-2025 275M cars with QNX, https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2025/12/19/blackberry-qnx-embedded-technology-now-powering-more-than-275-million-vehicles-on-the-road/97725/ AI/robotics, https://qnx.software/en/industries/robotics", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742388832, "item_id": 46399302, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399302", "by": "xvilka", "date": "2025-12-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "QNX doesn't stand much chance today too", "excerpt": "> They lost their developer base. Support of open source tools on QNX stopped. Right. These days it's better to invest into Redox OS[1] as a potential substitute for it (if work on real time capability). And with real time patches merged into Linux mainline[2] QNX doesn't stand much chance today too. [1] https://doc.redox-os.org/book/microkernels.html [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/real-time-linux-is-off", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 742383248, "item_id": 46398953, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398953", "by": "Animats", "date": "2025-12-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Me too, although it's been a long time since Photon. \"This environment runs as a virtual machine, using QEMU on Ubuntu. To try the image, you'll need: Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04.\" So it doesn't boot on bare metal? Maybe they're trying to get away from needing Windows. The previous recommended development environment was cross-compilation from Windows. The big news here is that they have a reasonable non-commercial license", "context": "", "use_case": "Real-time OS development", "switched_from": "", "story": "QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop"}, {"id": 739062960, "item_id": 46191435, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191435", "by": "lproven", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "QNX DEMO disk", "excerpt": "> yeah but what can you do with free QNX? \u00ab QNX DEMO disk Extending possibilities and adding undocumented features \u00bb http://qnx.puslapiai.lt/qnxdemo/qnx_demo_disk.htm", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}, {"id": 739053488, "item_id": 46190843, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190843", "by": "qznc", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use proprietary tools (QNX compiler, Coverity static analysis, ...)", "excerpt": "We use proprietary tools (QNX compiler, Coverity static analysis, ...) and those require access to a license server which requires some secret. I don't really understand what you mean by \"secure enclave style\"? How would that be different?", "context": "", "use_case": "Embedded OS compiler", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Actions has a package manager, and it might be the worst"}, {"id": 738816832, "item_id": 46176052, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176052", "by": "Beijinger", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Somebody has build it: https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/", "excerpt": "Somebody has build it: https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/", "context": "", "use_case": "QNX 7 desktop build", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}, {"id": 738792064, "item_id": 46174504, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46174504", "by": "gardnr", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "QNX had a \"free as in beer\" distro that fit on a floppy", "excerpt": "I love lightweight distros. QNX had a \"free as in beer\" distro that fit on a floppy, with Xwindows and modem drivers. After years of wrangling with Slackware CDs, it was pretty wild to boot into a fully functional system from a floppy.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tiny Core Linux: a 23 MB Linux distro with graphical desktop"}]}