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Pain intensity across 24 scored postsHow intense the frustration is across the analyzed posts, bucketed from each post’s pain score. This is the signal we cluster on — not whether a post “sounds” positive or negative.
Tools mentionedEvery tool name detected across the analyzed posts — including ones mentioned in passing (e.g. Slack, Zoom). This is broader than the Competitors section, which lists only the alternatives the analysis judged relevant to this market.
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Users on Windows encounter friction with GNU Make due to path separator mismatches (slash vs. backslash) and shell-determination issues, making it unreliable for Windows-based development workflows.
“I've read a little about gnu make, and that its got some issues on windows platforms (from slash/backslash, to shell determination ...)”
Developers converting Ant build scripts to Makefiles hit a wall when trying to replicate Ant-specific tasks like XSLT transformations, for which Make has no native equivalent, requiring significant manual effort.
“I am going to convert an Ant script to a Make file. I have finished lot of conversion part of it. But that ant script has small code like below, <xslt in="" out="" style="../profiling/profile.xsl"> ... How should I write above "xslt", "in", "out", "style", and "param name" parts of ant script in my Make file? I tried and searched about that conversion so many times, but I couldn't find it.”
Even when alternatives offer clear technical advantages, they struggle to gain traction — leaving users uncertain whether to invest in them, and builders of alternatives unsure how to compete with Make's entrenched position.
“Are there measurable benefits to the alternatives, or are the 'market shares' due mostly to opinion and experience of team leaders?”
“What forces are at work keeping crufty old Make (with or without makefile generator tools) prominent as a build tool? Is it deficiencies in alternatives that keep them from being widely adopted, or insufficient publicity, or does something about Make keep it in place?”
Long-time Make users acknowledge the underlying concept is valid but find the actual implementation lacking, prompting a sustained search for alternatives that don't over-engineer the problem. This is a recurring sentiment spanning from 2008 through 2022.
“I've been using make and makefiles for many many years, and although the concept is sound, the implementation has something to be desired.”
“Are there any new Make alternatives that I should try for building a multi-language, monorepo project that also has a number of Linux system dependencies?”
Despite Make's dominance, users and observers note it has well-documented weaknesses when dealing with large projects, yet alternatives have failed to displace it — leaving teams stuck with a tool that doesn't serve complex, multi-language or monorepo setups well.
“Despite Make's many weaknesses and difficulties dealing with large projects (e.g. see http://freshmeat.net/articles/what-is-wrong-with-make) it appears to still be more widely used than newer, improved alternatives such as Scons, Jam, Rake, Cook, and others.”
“Are there any new Make alternatives that I should try for building a multi-language, monorepo project that also has a number of Linux system dependencies? For some context the languages will definitely be Python and Julia, with possibly Rust, C/C++, and CUDA.”
A task runner / build tool alternative to Make written in Go, with multiple releases discussed on HN between 2018 and 2025.
See the supporting findingUsers migrating from Ant to Make find that Ant-specific tasks (e.g. XSLT) have no straightforward Make equivalent.
See the supporting findingCited as another alternative to Make that exists but has not displaced it in practice.
See the supporting findingUsers cite cross-platform issues on Windows (slash/backslash conflicts, shell determination) as key drawbacks, while acknowledging its ubiquity.
See the supporting findingGenerated by AI from a limited set of public discussions. It can be incomplete or wrong — check the cited sources before making a decision.