TeX
No written verdict yet. Here is what commenters said.
Why people recommend it
“people seem to think TeX itself is actually quite nice to use”
“TeX, via packages and wrappers, can do practically anything.”
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“good tool support virtually everywhere for those alternatives, like in TeX”
“so if you are looking for stability, look no further”
“I'm a big fan of this implementation [1] of the TeX linebreak algorithm”
Caveats and dissent
“TeX relies on a stack of evil hacks and esoteric behavior that is very hard to replicate”
“Celebrating batch-mode typesetting in 2026 feels like some weird cyberpunk fixation.”
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“I had to rename all the Java source files to abide by the NTSPL license terms”
“See Knuth's extensive bug list for TEX from 1987”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“I'm quite personally invested in TeX, far more than most people are.”
Threads where it came up
- RaTeX: KaTeX-compatible LaTeX rendering engine in pure Rust 3 mentions
- Tectonic: A modernized, complete, self-contained TeX/LaTeX engine 2 mentions
- Show HN: Justif – Knuth-Plass justification and microtypography for the web 1 mention
- A Road to Lisp: Why Lisp 1 mention
- A stray "j" ruined my evening 1 mention
- CSS: Unavoidable Bad Parts 1 mention
Data: tex.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 23
“by default TeX doesn't do tracking or expansion”
“learning it was a lot of help in using TeX”
“TeX is where I see it the most often these days.”
“TeX relies on a stack of evil hacks and esoteric behavior that is very hard to replicate”
“most TeX engines only produce a single page size at a time”
“If you have a decent TeX distribution installed you have a copy for long flights.”
“I'm fascinated with TeX”
“Celebrating batch-mode typesetting in 2026 feels like some weird cyberpunk fixation.”
“Even if TeX had a massive head start”
“people seem to think TeX itself is actually quite nice to use”
“It is much more responsive than compiling in TeX.”
“PDF files typeset with TeX”
“add a mandatory delimiter as suggested by The TeXbook”
“I came from the TeX-Approach where all layout elements are boxes which contain other boxes.”
“I had to rename all the Java source files to abide by the NTSPL license terms”
“TeX, via packages and wrappers, can do practically anything.”
“Yup, TeXhax has been around since 1986”
“much better language than TeX, but for the other part the typesetting quality is much worse”
“good tool support virtually everywhere for those alternatives, like in TeX”
“the way it interacts with page placement is quite different”
“so if you are looking for stability, look no further”
“I'm a big fan of this implementation [1] of the TeX linebreak algorithm”
“See Knuth's extensive bug list for TEX from 1987”