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hhvm
C++2010–2025
meta / hhvm

hhvm

A virtual machine for executing programs written in Hack.

Systems & Infrastructure
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
65Distinct people
75Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
18.7KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A virtual machine for executing programs written in Hack.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 9:02:44 AM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year75 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2010-02-03 00:23:26 UTC to 2025-01-02 20:28:29 UTC.

0510152010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 2 submissions, 3 comments20102011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 9 mentions; 1 submissions, 8 comments2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 0 submissions, 10 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 15 mentions; 1 submissions, 14 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 15 mentions; 0 submissions, 15 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20102010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC523
20112011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC918
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC10010
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC15114
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC15015
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
HHVM HHVM page | HHVM documentation | Hacklang page | General group | Dev group | Twitter HHVM is an open-source virtual machine designed for executing programs written in Hack. HHVM uses a just-in-time (JIT) compilation approach to achieve superior performance while maintaining amazing development flexibility. HHVM should be used together with a webserver like the built in, easy to deploy Proxygen, or a FastCGI-based webserver on top of nginx or Apache. Installing If you're new, try our getting started guide. You can install a prebuilt package or compile from source. Running You can run standalone programs just by passing them to hhvm: hhvm example.hack. If you want to host a website: Install your favorite webserver. Proxygen is built into HHVM, fast and easy to deploy. Install our package Start your webserver Run sudo /etc/init.d/hhvm start Visit your site at http://.../main.hack Our getting started guide provides a slightly more detailed introduction as well as links to more information. Contributing We'd love to have your help in making HHVM better. If you're interested, please read our guide to contributing. License HHVM is licensed under the PHP and Zend licenses except as otherwise noted. The Hack typechecker is licensed under the MIT License except as otherwise noted. The Hack Standard Library is licensed under the MIT License except as otherwise noted. Reporting Crashes See Reporting Crashes for helpful tips on how to report crashes in an actionable manner. Security For information on reporting security vulnerabilities in HHVM, see SECURITY.md. FAQ Our user FAQ has answers to many common questions about HHVM, from general questions to questions geared towards those that want to use. There is also a FAQ for contributors to HHVM.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

15 sources
frik·Dec 20, 2013
Yes, on the official wiki: https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/wiki/_pages First read the page related to your Linux/BSD e.g. "Prebuilt Packages on Ubuntu 12.04" Then read the page "Using nginx as Front Server to HipHop" As last step read this blog article how to write/edit the config file (/etc/hhvm.hdf): http://www.hhvm.com/blog/113/getting-wordpress-running-on-hh... Read this and copy things you need from the documentation: https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/blob/master/hphp/doc/option... This is how I got HHVM working. To sum up: * you need a little bit of basic Linux knowledge * install Linux or BSD (e.g. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) (64-bit) * install Nginx (or since last week HHVM also supports Apache with FastCGI) * install HHVM * install MySQL or MariaDB, etc. * create a web directory where you place your php files * edit the hhv
Read the rest
m.hdf (config file) * start hhvm Btw. a lot of blog posts you find with Google search are still about the old HpHp (the former and now outdated PHP to C++ translator also called HipHop from FB)... so better skip third party blog posts older than January 2013 ;)
In HipHop VM: now at 98.5% PHP framework parity, 16% faster
frik·Dec 19, 2013
I run HHVM on a website. I started in June (back then you had to write your config file from scratch and some API functions were missing). I refactored my code to PDO (mysqli was missing back then). It worked fine from the beginning, and the uptime and overall performance is really great. I use Nginx as frontend and direct all dynamic request to HHVM's own webserver (https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/wiki/Using-nginx-as-Front-S... ) Keep in mind, Facebook runs on HHVM too, so it's rock solid. Btw. the devs are very helpful on the official irc channel!
In HipHop VM: now at 98.5% PHP framework parity, 16% faster
ptarjan·Dec 18, 2013
Whenever we can, we build extensions in PHP https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/tree/master/hphp/system/php Many of the older extensions that were imported back in the HPHPc days are in C since they were much easier to port from php-src if we didn't have to translate the language. As for why this was't in PHP, two reasons. It was easier to stay in the language since our event loop code was already in C++, and most of the gains we get from writing library code in PHP comes from not having to cross a language barrier from userland code. The event loop is not the best place for that.
In FasterCGI with HHVM
kodablah·Dec 17, 2013
I wish they would be implementing more of the runtime support in PHP itself. Why not make the FastCGI[1] code in pure PHP (like others have[2])? I understand if they don't feel PHP is the best language for daemons, but it would allow so many other developers to use, modify, and comprehend the implementation. I think HHVM suffers from a serious lack of dogfooding. 1 - https://github.com/facebook/hhvm/tree/master/hphp/runtime/se... 2 - https://github.com/kakserpom/phpdaemon/tree/master/PHPDaemon...
In FasterCGI with HHVM
josegonzalez·Sep 13, 2013
I'm on the Cake Core team. We're moving towards a 3.x release, which will be all PHP 5.4 compatible (namespaces, etc.) so the issue they point out in class loading will be non-existent. We are discussing aliasing the String class to a CakeText class, and then deprecating the String class in a 2.5 release. If we had known this was an issue[1], then it would likely have made it into the recent 2.4 release. Something that would be nice would be to see the method in which they ran the tests, so that we can include their testing into our TravisCI/Jenkins setup. Probably would help other frameworks/packages as well. Will file a bug. EDIT: Bug Filed: https://github.com/facebook/hiphop-php/issues/1054 [1]: They could and should have filed a bug. A cursory search of our lighthouse issue tracker does not surface one, though admittedly lighthouse is
Read the rest
pretty shit, so it may indeed be there.
In HHVM is fast – too bad it doesn’t run my code
sdrinf·Jun 19, 2013
There was a pretty dense discussion on the first option at Stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5069791/challenge-maximiz... The most viable target market for self-hosted products are still entreprises ; deployment via virtual images might be the most feasable solution for all parties involved. Second-best option, specifically for eg. PHP, might be compiling the code into executables (via eg. https://github.com/facebook/hiphop-php ), and distributing distro-specific executables. Re: 3rd option, the specific worry about distributing code in any form isn't piracy (as pointed out by firstprimate, those aren't your customers); rather, blatant ripoffs engaging in marketing-only competition using a rebranded version of your own product.
In Ask HN: Best way(s) to distribute a self-hosted, non-compiled product
Joeri·Mar 28, 2013
If we're going that route, the fastest php performance you would probably get from facebook's HHVM JIT compiling php engine: https://github.com/facebook/hiphop-php It's no accident that zend optimizer (bytecode cache) is being bundled into php 5.5 as open source, as mere bytecode caching is now not fast enough to charge money for when hhvm is open source. I expect the next version of zend's commercial php server product to contain a JIT engine to match what hhvm can do.
In Web Framework Benchmarks

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