LELeFantome·Feb 23, 2026
No, they never completed or adopted their own language. It was back in the SerenityOS days, before the browser forked into its own project.
https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
In Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AISerenityOS
jakt
C++2022–2026
SerenityOS / jakt
jakt
The Jakt Programming Language
21Distinct people
31Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
The Jakt Programming Language
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
I love Rust, but its model and specifics would make it difficult to learn how to write code in other languages. For low-level code, I think Carbon may fill that niche in the…
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Also in these discussions
- serenityos/serenity · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM 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 year31 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2022-05-21 01:57:15 UTC to 2026-02-23 19:15:31 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 13 | 1 | 12 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 1 | 7 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
31 sources> The Ladybird devs painted themselves in a corner when choosing C++ for a new web browser
That choice was never made. C++ was selrcted as the language of choice for SerenityOS. Since the goal of the OS was to make its founder happy, and C++ was his faviourite language at the time, that seems like an obvious choice. Later, as part of SerenityOS, there was a need for an HTML parser. It was written in C++ as was the rest of the operating system. Then that HTML parser evolved into a full web browser. As part of the SerenityOS project, that browser was written completely in C++. Then that web browser forked off into an independent project...
Ladybird was already a fully functioning browser (not finished of course but complete enough to surf many web pages) when it was forked from SerenityOS to create a stand-alone web browser. The choice at t
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hat point was "keep evolving the current C++ code base" or start-over. I doubt the second option was even considered.
They have been evaluating other languages since before the fork. Rust was evaluated and rejectd early-on. They even created their own language at one point.
https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
Kling's politics aside, he's also had a history of abandoning projects after hyping them up on social media and attracting contributors. Here is what happened to SerenityOS and jakt, for example:
https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/graphs/commit-activit...
https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/graphs/commit-activity
If Cloudflare wants to defend the future of the web, maybe they could also throw a few dollars towards projects with better governance and aren't helmed by a BFDL with a spotty record and are written in a more future-proof language than C++ [0]. (For example, Servo.)
[0]: In Kling's own words! https://web.archive.org/web/20250819053816/https://awesomekl...
In Cloudflare is sponsoring Ladybird and OmarchyI wonder what convinced Andreas Kling to abandon his own language Jakt [1] in favour of Swift.
In the long run, it would be good to have high-level languages other than Java that have garbage collection (at least optionally) and classes, and that are still capable of doing cross-platform system development. I don't know if Swift fits that bill, besides cross-platform ecosystem (a la Java), submitting the language for ISO standardization (not just open sourcing one implementation) would be a good indication of being serious about language support.
[1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
In Verso – Web browser built on top of the Servo web engineAndreas has been talking about liking and exploring Swift since before he started working on Jakt [0] and if you look at Jakt you will clearly see it is heavily influenced by Swift.
[0] https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
In Ladybird browser to start using Swift language this fallContributions are still being made to it[0], but definitely nothing compared to when it was first announced. Seems essentially dead to me at least.
[0]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
In Ladybird browser to start using Swift language this fallJakt[0] was being developped by Andreas at some point. It seems stall for now.
[0] https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
In Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub FounderFinally! Congrats to Andreas and the dev team that made it happen!
I hope a portion of the funds to go in Jakt's [1] development as it's a very promising language that looks both clean and elegant AND it's a memory-safe systems programming language.
[1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/
In Welcome to LadybirdAndreas (the author of ladybird) started a language[0] that would be memory-safe and in which he would eventually write SerenityOS (and I assume LadyBird too). He hasn't committed to it for 6 months now so not sure what the status is.
At the end of the day, LadyBird is still a hobby project, so one of the main objective is to have fun which does not always coincide with rationality (although the decision to move on from NIH[1] is a sign that this might be changing).
[0] https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
In Ladybird browser spreads its wingsWhat's the plan for Jakt, the programming language? Does it fall under the SerenityOS umbrella? Will LadyBird continue to use C++? The blog post doesn't mention it.
https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
In I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFLJakt [1] shares your design philosophy, and has implemented syntax like this: [2]
guard foo is Bar(x) else {
println("not matched")
return -1 as! c_int
}
println("hello there: {}", x)
[1]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
[2]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt/blob/main/samples/guard/i...
In Useless Ruby sugar: Pattern matchingSerenityOS is doing exactly that:
https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird
I also like their Jakt programming language:
https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt
Though I'm more enthusiastic about Redox (doing it in Rust):
https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redox/
In Essence: A desktop OS built from scratch, for control and simplicityShowing the 15 most recent of 31 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.