Metals with hexagonal crystal structure are found in many safety-critical applications, from titanium alloy fan blades in jet engines to magnesium alloys in the automotive industry. They also exist in nuclear reactors, for example hafnium alloy control rods whose structural integrity is critical to nuclear safety. However, mechanistic understanding of the micromechanical properties and deformation behaviour of Hf remains elusive. To aid in this understanding, we performed in situ scanning electron microscopy single crystal micropillar compression tests of a commercial Hf alloy, where the samples were aligned to activate 〈a〉 prismatic and 〈a〉 basal slip systems. We then employed transmission electron microscopy to examine the dislocation structure in the deformed pillars. These two slip systems exhibited distinctly different behaviour, where prismatic slip is planar and basal slip is wavy. Prismatic slip is the easiest deformation mode, while basal slip is at least twice as difficult. Generally, the characters of prismatic and basal slip in Hf show similarities to those in some other hexagonal metals such as Ti and Zr, except for the higher relative difficulty of basal slip. Our results provide fundamental knowledge and parameters that can be used for modelling degradation and predicting performance of Hf, and shed light on the general behaviour of basal and prismatic slip systems in low-c/a-ratio hexagonal metals.