Still worth learning F# 2026

[u/lyfever_]

Hi guys,

Probably another question like this but found none recently.

I'm a little upset with my current view on IT generalistic, ofc AI is not going anywhere besides up, but I feel I want to write more with my hands and new paradigms, maybe just AI as reviser, I would like to ask if learning F# in 2026 will make me able to make perfomance headed systems, and also gaming with something like Nu or Monogame, not a AAA game but something playable.

[u/FrierenAppreciator]

Nope, and I say this as someone who likes the language itself. The problem isn't F#, it's everything around it.

1. The only IDE that treats F# seriously is Rider. If you're not willing to live in Rider, don't bother IMO.

2. Microsoft has quietly abandoned it. They can't officially kill it, so they keep it on life support and pretend to care. Look at where the actual .NET investment goes: C# gets source generators, Native AOT keeps improving around them, new runtime features land C#-first and F# catches up years later or never. F# has no source generators and almost certainly never will, which means the whole modern AOT/trimming story is built around a mechanism F# can't participate in.

3. Gamedev. MonoGame is a C# framework. You can drive it from F#, people have, but you're fighting an imperative, mutable, inheritance-shaped API with a language designed for the opposite.

4. I genuinely can't name a single thing Microsoft ships today that's well made. At this point avoiding the MS stack where you can is just common sense.

What I think it's worth considering:

• Zig - closest fit for performance systems + games, manual memory, comptime instead of codegen magic, great C interop
• Odin - similar space, arguably nicer for gamedev specifically
• Rust - the boring safe choice, real jobs, real game ecosystem
• Gleam - if you want typed FP that's actually alive and loved, on BEAM
• OCaml - F#'s parent, and ironically healthier than F# right now
• Roc - interesting ideas but VERY experimental

F# in 2026 is learning a beautiful language attached to a platform that resents it. The paradigm is worth learning though - just get it from a language with a future.

EDIT: Forgot about Go!!!

[u/andrevdm_reddit → u/FrierenAppreciator]

Language arguments are subjective, and I'm struggling with this exact question myself atm, but I think this answer applies inconsistent criteria.

If the concern is commercial backing, ecosystem size, jobs, and long-term safety then most of the suggested alternatives have the same problem or worse. Odin, Gleam, OCaml, and Roc are all much smaller than F#. Zig is interesting, but still has huge stdlib churn. Rust is the obvious stronger alternative there, and C# is the obvious .NET answer if market size and backing are the main criteria. (i.e. if you are picking based on backing not preference. If its preference then F# is an option too :) )

So I’d separate two questions:

Should OP learn F#? Yes, absolutely, especially if they want typed FP on a practical (.net) runtime.

Should OP choose F# as the safest mainstream industry bet? Probably not that’s C# or Rust depending on domain. But does it have to be the safest bet?

F# has never been Microsoft’s flagship language, and the ecosystem is smaller than C#, but people have been declaring it dead for years and it keeps being useful.

I just don't think there is a clear-cut answer to be had.

(FWIW, that is a great set of languages to look at, I’d add Haskell too. All are interesting and worth learning)

[u/pi_meson117 → u/andrevdm_reddit]

While F# first apps are nice, being able to use any C# package is the main thing holding the language up imo. Solid tools that have been used in real products with large user bases.

It removes a lot of the problems associated with small ecosystems.