Products · Broad category
Open source software
Raised as a usability problem by 184 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 175 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Poor documentation leaves people hours working out usageUnreviewed
20092026- Lacks documentation, so users can't tell how to use it2026-02-13
- Free software documentation is confusing for regular users2025-03-17
- Documentation is poorly structured and outdated, so code samples and tutorials break2022-03-28
Alternatives are incompatible with professional softwareUnreviewed
20092026- Alternatives are unusable and incompatible with professional software, with usability issues lasting decades2026-10-11
- Maintainers keep flawed interfaces and workaround-based user paths instead of fixing usability problems2022-12-27
- Maintainers design for themselves, so most people can't run the software and must read a barely existing manual2021-07-10
Developers build apps without understanding the user interfaceUnreviewed
20092026- Talented developers build apps without understanding how the user interface works2026-10-08
- Developers focus on features over simple UI and ease of use, hard for newbies2025-10-31
- Developer-made interfaces are inscrutable and unusable to people without software development knowledge2024-01-29
Open source tools lack usable front ends, forcing command lineUnreviewed
20092026- Open source raw editors' interfaces need design work to feel intuitive2022-07-04
- Open source simulation tools are powerful but have unusable user interfaces2016-06-09
- Open source tools lack usable front ends, so people must use command-line interfaces2015-11-08
UIs degrade as community contributions pile upUnreviewed
20092026- Modernizing GUIs often makes things worse or changes them randomly without improvement2026-09-24
- Communities reject UI changes that would improve usability, so newbies' complaints about confusing UIs get shut down2020-04-17
- UIs degrade over time as community contributions pile up2017-06-12
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Open source image editors have mind-boggling UX problems compared with Photoshop2026-10-12
- Alternatives are unusable and incompatible with professional software, with usability issues lasting decades2026-10-11
- Talented developers build apps without understanding how the user interface works2026-10-08
- Flat designs hide scrollbars and menus, leaving unclear where controls belong2026-09-27
- Modernizing GUIs often makes things worse or changes them randomly without improvement2026-09-24
- Settings are organized around developer logic, so users can't find options like font size2026-07-29
- Open source software tends to have poor user experience design2026-07-29
- Single-word deletions don't register and multi-word deletions leave clipped audio with abrupt skips2026-07-28
- Clicking the upper-left menu navigated away and lost transcription and edits2026-07-27
- Finding what went wrong in docs is tedious and leads to dead-end threads2026-07-23
- Projects without corporate backing are mostly unusable, especially for younger users2026-07-02
- Tool is unacceptably slow when syncing code between repositories2026-07-01
- Open source alternatives are hard to use with poor UI/UX2026-06-05
- Prospective users can't find the setup file, and onboarding confuses them into switching to commercial apps2026-04-24
- Lacks documentation, so users can't tell how to use it2026-02-13
- Designed as expert systems, unsuited to workflows users want out of the box2025-12-20
- Blank page with AI ask-me-anything prompt hides products, leaving visitor uncertain2025-12-14
- Open-source TV options are not plug and play and lack streaming apps2025-12-13
- Page scrolls at about 2 fps on phone, making it unusable2025-12-13
- Switching between applications is hard because small UX differences cost productivity2025-12-08
- Complicated UIs expose every model parameter without explanation, overwhelming new users2025-11-26
- Complicated UI exposes every model parameter without explanation, overwhelming new users2025-11-25
- Hard to find the table of contents link, and it doesn't work on iOS2025-11-16
- Too many calendar servers with different features and generally terrible UI2025-11-11
- Developers focus on features over simple UI and ease of use, hard for newbies2025-10-31
- Non-technical users need help repeatedly to do simple tasks2025-10-31
- Open-source apps have ugly or poorly designed UX that users complain about2025-10-30
- Beginners must learn cryptic scripts and underlying concepts just to get started2025-10-30
- Free software has bad user experience that scares normal people away2025-10-30
- Installing much free software is effectively impossible for non-hobbyist users2025-10-13
- Trivial doc fixes are blocked until an issue goes through a process first2025-09-13
- Users must learn and memorize different ways of doing the same thing across applications2025-07-22
- Site sometimes loads and sometimes doesn't, seemingly at random2025-07-21
- Most free open-source user-facing apps have terrible UX that users must tolerate2025-06-10
- Consumer-facing open source software has poor user experience and design2025-05-13
- Free software documentation is confusing for regular users2025-03-17
- Interfaces show too many controls and statuses, confusing non-technical users trying to solve a simple problem2024-12-26
- Making detection zones is hard; the UI exposes code structure and is unpleasant to use2024-12-01
- Users struggle to discover features in free and open-source software interfaces2024-11-18
- Open-source CAD is rough around the edges from a UX perspective, a dealbreaker for engineers2024-11-18
- Open source Android is essentially unusable unless you accept very early Android look2024-10-14
- Workspaces and Spaces names are too similar, causing confusion about structure2024-06-30
- Open source business software has awful UX because designers aren't paid2024-05-17
- Clicking a menu item closes it immediately because menus open on hover2024-05-13
- Shows a black screen while loading with no loading indicator2024-05-12
- Low contrast icons and empty timeline give no clue how to load media2024-05-12
- Drop indicator appears when dragging files in, but dropping them does nothing2024-05-12
- Open source alternatives need much more setup and jank, so the commenter keeps switching back2024-04-04
- Ctrl-Shift-H shortcut is illogical and not intuitive for find2024-03-08
- Open source versions are made almost impossible to install2024-03-06