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Haxe VS D (Programming Language)

Compare Haxe VS D (Programming Language) and see what are their differences

Haxe logo Haxe

Haxe is an open source toolkit based on a modern, high level, strictly typed programming language.

D (Programming Language) logo D (Programming Language)

D is a language with C-like syntax and static typing.
  • Haxe Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-28

We recommend LibHunt Haxe for discovery and comparisons of trending Haxe projects.

  • D (Programming Language) Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-09

Haxe features and specs

  • Cross-Platform
    Haxe allows developers to write code once and compile it to multiple target platforms, including JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, Python, Lua, and others.
  • Strong Typing
    Haxe has a strong, static type system which helps to catch errors at compile time, leading to more robust and error-free code.
  • High Performance
    Because Haxe compiles directly to native code or optimized JavaScript, it can offer performance close to, or even indistinguishable from, hand-written code in the target language.
  • Open Source
    Haxe is open-source, which means it is free to use and has a community-driven development model that can lead to rapid improvements and updates.
  • Standard Library
    Haxe comes with a versatile standard library that is designed to work seamlessly across all target platforms, ensuring consistency and reducing the need for platform-specific code.
  • Macro System
    Haxe has a powerful macro system that allows for advanced metaprogramming capabilities, making it possible to write more expressive and flexible code.
  • Interoperability
    Haxe allows for easy integration with existing projects and libraries in various target languages, making it easier to adopt without having to completely rewrite existing code.

Possible disadvantages of Haxe

  • Smaller Community
    Haxe has a relatively smaller community compared to more mainstream technologies like JavaScript or Python, which can result in fewer resources, libraries, and third-party tools.
  • Learning Curve
    As Haxe supports multiple platforms, there is a learning curve associated with understanding how to effectively target different platforms and leverage Haxe's unique features.
  • Tooling
    Although Haxe has seen improvements, its tooling ecosystem (IDEs, debuggers, etc.) may not be as mature or feature-rich as those available for more established languages.
  • Native Libraries
    While Haxe can interoperate with existing libraries, it may not have native libraries that match the breadth and depth available in the target platformโ€™s native languages.
  • Less Documentation
    Due to its smaller user base, Haxe might have less comprehensive documentation and fewer tutorials compared to more popular programming languages.
  • Ecosystem Fragmentation
    The wide range of target platforms can sometimes lead to a fragmented ecosystem, where community efforts and support might be unevenly distributed across different targets.

D (Programming Language) features and specs

  • Performance
    D is designed to be a high-performance systems programming language, offering performance comparable to C and C++ through native machine code compilation.
  • Expressiveness
    D features a rich standard library and modern language constructs, such as garbage collection, first-class arrays, and advanced templating, making it easier to write expressive and maintainable code.
  • Memory Safety
    D offers optional garbage collection along with manual memory management. This hybrid approach can help in developing safer applications by reducing memory-related errors.
  • Interoperability
    D can easily interoperate with C API, enabling seamless integration with existing C libraries and systems. It also supports better C++ interoperability compared to other languages.
  • Built-in Unit Testing
    D has built-in support for unit tests, allowing developers to write and run tests as part of the language itself, facilitating test-driven development.
  • Concurrency
    D offers built-in concurrency support with message passing, similar to the actor model found in languages like Erlang, making it easier to write concurrent and parallel programs.

Possible disadvantages of D (Programming Language)

  • Adoption
    D is not as widely adopted as other languages like C, C++, or Java. This limited adoption means fewer libraries, frameworks, and community support.
  • Toolchain Maturity
    While D's compilers and tools have improved over the years, they may still lack the maturity and feature set of more established languages, which can affect developer productivity.
  • Learning Curve
    D's richness and combination of paradigms (such as imperative, object-oriented, and functional programming) can present a steep learning curve for new developers.
  • Garbage Collection
    Although D offers optional garbage collection, its reliance on it for memory safety might be seen as a drawback for real-time system development where deterministic memory management is crucial.
  • Ecosystem
    The ecosystem for D is less vibrant compared to more popular languages, leading to potentially fewer third-party libraries, tools, and resources.
  • Standard Library Documentation
    The standard library documentation can be inconsistent or less comprehensive compared to other languages, making it difficult for developers to fully utilize all features of the language.

Analysis of Haxe

Overall verdict

  • Haxe is a solid choice for developers seeking a flexible programming environment that supports cross-platform development. It is robust, efficient, and provides powerful tools for a wide range of applications. Its ability to compile to various target environments is a standout feature.

Why this product is good

  • Haxe is a versatile, open-source, high-level language that can target multiple platforms. It allows developers to write in a single language and then compile their code to popular languages and frameworks like JavaScript, C++, Python, Java, C#, and Node.js, among others. Haxe provides a comprehensive standard library, which contributes to its efficiency and ease of use. It also encourages code reusability and scalability, making it appealing for cross-platform development.

Recommended for

  • Game developers
  • Web developers
  • Cross-platform app developers
  • Developers looking for a single language to target multiple platforms
  • Developers interested in open-source technology

Analysis of D (Programming Language)

Overall verdict

  • Overall, D is a solid programming language choice that balances performance with productivity. It may not be as widely adopted as some other languages, but it has a dedicated community and continues to evolve, making it a viable option for various programming tasks.

Why this product is good

  • The D programming language is considered good by many developers for various reasons. It combines the performance and low-level control of C/C++ with the expressive power and ease of use found in modern languages. D offers features like garbage collection, first-class functions, and compile-time function execution, providing both speed and flexibility. Its interoperability with C, the convenience of a powerful standard library (Phobos), and the availability of packages via the DUB package manager make it a practical choice for systems programming, application development, and rapid prototyping.

Recommended for

  • System programming enthusiasts looking for an alternative to C/C++
  • Developers interested in writing high-performance applications
  • Programmers who appreciate modern language features and strong community support
  • Projects requiring seamless C integration
  • Individuals looking for a language that supports easy code maintenance and scalability

Haxe videos

Haxe: An understated powerhouse for software development - George Corney [ACCU 2019]

More videos:

D (Programming Language) videos

D Language Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Haxe and D (Programming Language))
Programming Language
48 48%
52% 52
OOP
34 34%
66% 66
Game Development
100 100%
0% 0
Generic Programming Language

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Haxe and D (Programming Language)

Haxe Reviews

The Best Gaming Engines You Should Consider for 2023
Haxe is a multiple-platform game engine thatโ€™s used for creating games using the Haxe programming language. Itโ€™s designed to be a high-performance game dev framework thatโ€™s supported by both a big community of Haxe devs and a wide range of libraries.
12 Best Frameworks and Toolkits to Build Desktop Applications
Haxe is a cross-platform desktop application development framework, so it can work on both desktop and handheld devices. If you know Java, C#, Python, PHP, and other advanced web programming languages, working with this framework will not be a hassle.
Source: geekflare.com
Top 10 Mobile Game Development Tools For Intellectual Games
It has a wealth of game frameworks and libraries and a vast range of features and APIs to create masterpiece mobile games. Given the fact that Haxe is fast enough to work all the way excellently through the development, game developers prefer Haxe.
Source: unaryteam.com
The Best 15 Mobile Game Engines / Development Platforms & Tools in 2020
Haxe is a programming language that resembles Java, C++, PHP or AS3 languages. It also includes a library from which you can select frameworks and choose between a wide range of functions and procedures (APIs) to develop your mobile game.
Source: thetool.io
Frameworks & Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps โ€“ Best of
Cons: Programs with native AS3 libraries are not yet fully supported by Haxe. Beside this, debugging difficulties increase after language translation of the source code, hence building something with Haxe requires high coding standards.

D (Programming Language) Reviews

We have no reviews of D (Programming Language) yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

D (Programming Language) might be a bit more popular than Haxe. We know about 60 links to it since March 2021 and only 56 links to Haxe. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Haxe mentions (56)

  • Fusion Programming Language
    I'd love to see a comparison to Haxe. https://haxe.org/ I wonder what performance and generated code size/quality look like. - Source: Hacker News / 27 days ago
  • Building a New Flash
    I know very little about this space, but wasn't Haxe(https://haxe.org/) supposed to be a sort of next-gen, modern Flash replacement? - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Building a JIT Compiler from Scratch: Part 1 โ€” Why Build a JIT Compiler?
    After reading Crafting Interpreters, I thought building a bytecode VM would be enough. I built Cabasa, a WebAssembly runtime. Iโ€™m now building Rayzor, a Haxe compiler in Rust. Each project taught me the same lesson: interpretation has a ceiling. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • A Farewell to ActionScript
    In some ways this feels like closing a door. I've come full circle and am working in JavaScript again, though it's come a long way since I first learned to declare variables with var in Khan Academy's Drawing and Animation course. For games in particular, Haxe often gets recommended as the next step from Flash, and of course there are other options for complete engines such as Godot. And ActionScript wouldn't have... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Adobe Animate will be discontinued effective March 1, 2026
    Notice that it's still very much possible to produce SWF files with languages like Haxe http://haxe.org/, and there are frameworks that mimic the Flash drawing API like OpenFL https://www.openfl.org/, there is (or was) a lot of interesting stuff like that happening around. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
View more

D (Programming Language) mentions (60)

  • Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)
    I've spent 2 weeks (2-4h per day) to make D language[1] version of Sciter SDK [2] Choice of AI "tooling" was by accident - typed something like "how to define copy constructor in D for custom structure" in Microsoft's Copilot in Edge browser that gives context for AI. The answer was good enough for me and so I went with it further. [1] D language HQ : https://dlang.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Rue: Higher level than Rust, lower level than Go
    > Mostly, I am not really trying to compete with C/C++/Rust on speed, but I'm not going to add a GC either. So I'm somewhere in there. Out of curiosity, how would you compare the goals of Rue with something like D[0] or one of the ML-based languages such as OCaml[1]? 0 - https://dlang.org/ 1 - https://ocaml.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language
    The D language home page has something similar with a drop down with code examples https://dlang.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
  • Show HN: D++lang โ€“ A new systems programming language with Python-like syntax
    What is this? There's a lot of red flags here. * The name "D" for a programming language was taken in 1999: https://dlang.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Koto Programming Language
    >For me the biggest gap in programming languages is a rust like language with a garbage collector, instead of a borrow checker. I cannot agree more that's the much needed sweet spot/Goldilock/etc. Personally I have been advocating this approach for some times. Apparently the language is already widely available and currently has stable and wide compiler support including the venerable GNU compiler suite (GDC). It... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Haxe and D (Programming Language), you can also consider the following products

Kotlin - Statically typed Programming Language targeting JVM and JavaScript

C++ - Has imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features, while also providing the facilities for low level memory manipulation

ReasonML - ReasonML is a new face to OCaml that--when coupled with BuckleScript--makes web development easy...

Nim (programming language) - The Nim programming language is a concise, fast programming language that compiles to C, C++ and JavaScript.

Java - A concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, language specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible

V (programming language) - Simple, fast, safe, compiled language for developing maintainable software.