That very much depends. Although there are plenty of well curated and moderated subreddits with quality posts and technically knowledgeable posters equal to anything HN has to offer, Hacker News also tends to descend into juvenile piss-taking rancor and bigotry with subjects outside of its techie wheelhouse.
At this point I'm certain dang has his constant pleas to avoid gender/race/religious war, nationalistic slurs and "posting in the flamewar style" linked to hotkeys just to avoid carpal tunnel.
I forget if PG started HN before or after YC funded Reddit. It's best to think of the two in an evolutionary sense, meaning, HN intentionally remained simple as opposed to Reddit. This was a prudent choice and many have complained about it, but I feel that otherwise HN would have ended up with the problems Reddit is facing now--specifically, where subs turn sour once they reach peak population in size. Ultimately, it's not a difference in features or lack therein that make Reddit and HN different, but the purpose they serve and the types of users they attract; PG made HN as a selection mechanism for YC candidates whereas Reddit is more of a social media platform and as such is focused on selling ads.
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[ 6.5 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] threadAt this point I'm certain dang has his constant pleas to avoid gender/race/religious war, nationalistic slurs and "posting in the flamewar style" linked to hotkeys just to avoid carpal tunnel.
Still, the quality of top level links tend to be pretty good and I tend to find stuff on here I otherwise wouldn’t have.
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RemingtonLak
At a detailed resolution, no, they're very different.