{"slug": "solaris", "name": "Solaris", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 1, "score": 2.066, "rising": 1.67, "first": "2026-01-22", "latest": "2026-09-21", "why": "our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.oracle.com/solaris/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Solaris"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 796689216, "item_id": 49793076, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49793076", "by": "imoverclocked", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "bigger iron that was humming along on Solaris 8 which provided a very stable environment", "excerpt": "We used it all to great success ... along with our Linux hosts. We had a stack of T1's and eventually a few thumpers (x4500's) which we ended up running a variant of OpenSolaris on. There was also some bigger iron that was humming along on Solaris 8 which provided a very stable environment (until I fat-fingered a command one day.) Later on, we even ran an ipfilter based router from a T1 on OpenSolaris for decent IPv6", "context": "sysadmin running Sun hardware", "use_case": "servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "What Sun got wrong"}, {"id": 786703424, "item_id": 49168964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49168964", "by": "hylaride", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers", "excerpt": "At a previous job circa 2008-12, we were a sun shop and moved from spark to x86 Solaris. It screamed at sustained, high-concurrency loads and our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers. By the time the Intel Nehalem chips became available to use, our DB loads screamed, too. There were edge cases where the sparc chips were better, but not at the price point", "context": "worked at a Sun shop circa 2008-12", "use_case": "high-concurrency database servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows XP 2002 for the Itanium: Unbridled rage"}, {"id": 747511792, "item_id": 46719487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46719487", "by": "pharaohgeek", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It quickly became my favorite OS.", "excerpt": "I began using Solaris in college when Sun made Solaris 7 free for anyone who wanted it. I still remember getting the huge package of CDs in the mail and installing them on my Pentium II desktop at home. It quickly became my favorite OS. When I used it, I felt like I was doing \"real\" work. I can't explain it. It wasn't a consumer OS like Windows, and it was more stable and polished than Linux was at the time. I miss t", "context": "began using it in college with Solaris 7", "use_case": "desktop OS in college", "switched_from": "", "story": "illumos"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 796625488, "item_id": 49789093, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49789093", "by": "jeffbee", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It was, as far as I could tell, an operating system that nobody had ever tried to use before.", "excerpt": "At my employer in 1999 we were maintaining home-grown binary modification to the Solaris kernel so that TCP segment send and receive were not O(N^2) where N was the number of addresses on the interface :-/ It was, as far as I could tell, an operating system that nobody had ever tried to use before. For anything where we could avoid Sun we used FreeBSD. One of the nice things about the free Unixes of that time was tha", "context": "ran servers in 1999", "use_case": "servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "What Sun got wrong"}]}], "who": [{"by": "imoverclocked", "context": "sysadmin running Sun hardware", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49793076", "date": "2026-09-21"}, {"by": "hylaride", "context": "worked at a Sun shop circa 2008-12", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49168964", "date": "2026-08-04"}, {"by": "icedchai", "context": "long-time user since the Amiga era", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49158736", "date": "2026-08-03"}, {"by": "pharaohgeek", "context": "began using it in college with Solaris 7", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46719487", "date": "2026-01-22"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["servers", "high-concurrency database servers", "general os use", "desktop os in college"], "compared": [{"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "freebsd", "name": "FreeBSD", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787436", "title": "What Sun got wrong", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49162086", "title": "Windows XP 2002 for the Itanium: Unbridled rage", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49140702", "title": "MkLinux and the pimped-out Apple Workgroup Server 9150", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708807", "title": "illumos", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 796689216, "item_id": 49793076, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49793076", "by": "imoverclocked", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "bigger iron that was humming along on Solaris 8 which provided a very stable environment", "excerpt": "We used it all to great success ... along with our Linux hosts. We had a stack of T1's and eventually a few thumpers (x4500's) which we ended up running a variant of OpenSolaris on. There was also some bigger iron that was humming along on Solaris 8 which provided a very stable environment (until I fat-fingered a command one day.) Later on, we even ran an ipfilter based router from a T1 on OpenSolaris for decent IPv6", "context": "sysadmin running Sun hardware", "use_case": "servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "What Sun got wrong"}, {"id": 796625488, "item_id": 49789093, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49789093", "by": "jeffbee", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It was, as far as I could tell, an operating system that nobody had ever tried to use before.", "excerpt": "At my employer in 1999 we were maintaining home-grown binary modification to the Solaris kernel so that TCP segment send and receive were not O(N^2) where N was the number of addresses on the interface :-/ It was, as far as I could tell, an operating system that nobody had ever tried to use before. For anything where we could avoid Sun we used FreeBSD. One of the nice things about the free Unixes of that time was tha", "context": "ran servers in 1999", "use_case": "servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "What Sun got wrong"}, {"id": 786703424, "item_id": 49168964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49168964", "by": "hylaride", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers", "excerpt": "At a previous job circa 2008-12, we were a sun shop and moved from spark to x86 Solaris. It screamed at sustained, high-concurrency loads and our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers. By the time the Intel Nehalem chips became available to use, our DB loads screamed, too. There were edge cases where the sparc chips were better, but not at the price point", "context": "worked at a Sun shop circa 2008-12", "use_case": "high-concurrency database servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows XP 2002 for the Itanium: Unbridled rage"}, {"id": 786539777, "item_id": 49158736, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49158736", "by": "icedchai", "date": "2026-08-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Around 1994, I moved to Linux and later Solaris, where crashes were rare.", "excerpt": "Yes, it was normal, for sure. I had an Amiga and it was also bad. Visits to the Guru (\"Guru Meditation Error\", equivalent of Windows UAEs) were common. Around 1994, I moved to Linux and later Solaris, where crashes were rare.", "context": "long-time user since the Amiga era", "use_case": "general OS use", "switched_from": "", "story": "MkLinux and the pimped-out Apple Workgroup Server 9150"}, {"id": 747511792, "item_id": 46719487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46719487", "by": "pharaohgeek", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It quickly became my favorite OS.", "excerpt": "I began using Solaris in college when Sun made Solaris 7 free for anyone who wanted it. I still remember getting the huge package of CDs in the mail and installing them on my Pentium II desktop at home. It quickly became my favorite OS. When I used it, I felt like I was doing \"real\" work. I can't explain it. It wasn't a consumer OS like Windows, and it was more stable and polished than Linux was at the time. I miss t", "context": "began using it in college with Solaris 7", "use_case": "desktop OS in college", "switched_from": "", "story": "illumos"}]}