How Compiler Explorer Works in 2025

by vitaut on 6/4/2025, 5:32:34 PM with 46 comments

  • by tomcam on 6/9/2025, 3:56:31 AM

    > 8. Your browser renders the assembly, and you go “ooh, how clever is this compiler!”

    Incorrect. I go “ooh, the appropriately named Mr. Godbolt is a fucking beast!”

  • by gpderetta on 6/9/2025, 2:10:58 PM

    > I really don’t know how many developers use Compiler Explorer: we purposefully don’t have the kind of tracking that could tell us. But, it’s at least in the thousands I think

    I think this a large underestimate :D

  • by galkk on 6/8/2025, 9:59:18 PM

    tl;dr:

        * Right now, Compiler Explorer costs around $3000 a month (including AWS, monitoring, Sentry for errors, Grafana, and other expenses). 
    * nsjail for security/isolation
    * 3.9 terabytes of compilers, libraries, and tools
    * Up to 30+ EC2 instances (EC2 instances are virtual machines)
    * 4,724 compiler versions
    * 1,982,662 short links saved (and as of recently, ~14k ex-goo.gl links)
    * 1.8 million compilations per week
    If my napkin math is correct, it's around 3 compilations/sec. and their cost is 0.0004 cents per compilation. Fascinating. If anyone asked me about ballpark estimate of compiler explorer cost, I'd be wrong at least at magnitude. Like - they must be heavy cpu/io/network bound, and this is like the worst scenario for cloud use.

    This and lichess (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41922928#41928953) shows that you really can handle very serious loads for quite cheap.

  • by extraduder_ire on 6/10/2025, 4:15:43 AM

    I didn't know Nvidia supplied hardware to go along with their corporate sponsorship.

    Total no-brainer though, since it will make programmers better at targetting their hardware. Hopefully other GPU makers notice and step in too. (I see intel already listed as a sponsor)

  • by psnehanshu on 6/8/2025, 7:42:29 PM

    The tool is called Compiler Explorer, but is hosted at godbolt.org. There's also compliler-explorer.com, which is the same thing. Why not retire the first domain? Just redirect to the namesake domain to prevent link rot.

  • by potato-peeler on 6/10/2025, 10:44:18 AM

    > Ten years from now, that Stack Overflow answer showing a GCC 4.8 bug will still compile on CE exactly as it did when posted. It’s our small contribution to fighting link rot

    The result can’t be cached? Why maintain an older version just for this?

  • by cerisier on 6/9/2025, 6:55:12 PM

    For the author: are there any plans to make the compilers builds available ? Prebuilt gccs are a rare and valuable spice !

  • by pfdietz on 6/9/2025, 2:54:18 PM

    I wonder how many compiler crashes they experience. That's a lot of test cases.

  • by wild_pointer on 6/8/2025, 9:47:26 PM

    How about compiling client-side with wasm, fully or partially? Feasible? Was it considered?

  • by arkj on 6/8/2025, 7:29:40 PM

    Maybe it’s a client side error but I see three links of this post on the homepage.

  • by quaintdev on 6/8/2025, 7:29:24 PM

    Is it just me or something is wrong with HN https://ibb.co/0RwqjZvP

  • by unconed on 6/8/2025, 7:17:51 PM

    Putting AI disclaimers at the end of your post seems like the wrong way to do it. If you feel the need to put a disclaimer, put it at the top. Otherwise, what's the point?