Abstract The High Altitude Detection of Astronomical Radiation (HADAR) is a novel wide-field Cherenkov Telescope. It is designed for gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range of 10 GeV to 100 TeV, with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) being one of its primary research focuses. To assess its complementary capabilities, this study first presents the Crab sensitivity of HADAR. Then, to compare the sensitivity of GRBs, the observation time for all experiments is standardized to 100 s. To clearly demonstrate HADAR’s advantages, we estimate its observational results with a 221009A-like GRB. The study found that HADAR is capable of more comprehensively recording the bending and absorption of self-Compton radiation, which is expected to fill observational gaps in space- and ground-based experiments. We anticipate that this facility will ensure a large statistical GRB sample and advance our understanding of GRBs.