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Raft lecture (Raft user study)

Diego Ongaro · lecture · Watch on YouTube

Distributed systemsUniversity lectures & courses

What it is

John Ousterhout lectures on the Raft consensus algorithm, made for the Raft user study comparing how students learn Raft and Paxos. It covers leader election and log repair.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters recommend it as a clearer introduction to Raft than the paper and as part of a well-designed understandability study.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “The 2 videos do an excellent job of explaining both the Paxos and Raft algorithms and the key differences between them.”

    Clear lecture explaining Raft and Paxos and how they differ.

    krat0sprakhar, 2014-10 · Strong recommendation · in “The Raft Consensus Algorithm”

  2. “i found the videos from the raft user study to be very well done (and easier to understand than even their paper)”

    Lecture on Paxos from the Raft user study.

    tomjohnson3, 2013-09 · Recommendation · in “ZooKeeper vs. Doozer vs. Etcd”

  3. “A really good intro to Raft”

    Good intro to Raft with clear practical examples.

    pkj, 2013-11 · Recommendation · in “The Writings of Leslie Lamport”

  4. “gives a solid explanation of Raft internals”

    Solid explanation of Raft internals by its creators.

    sathish316, 2025-08 · Recommendation · in “The Raft Consensus Algorithm (2015)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: raft, paxos, leader election, john ousterhout, distributed systems

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