# Archive.org 48 Hacker News commenters recommended Archive.org and 23 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Free nonprofit library and web archive with huge collections of books, magazines, music and old web pages. Critics say it removes content after takedown requests and breaks archived pages more than rivals. ## Why people recommend it - Huge free library of books and magazines (6 comments): "Anna's Archive, Libgen, and archive.org provide enough bandwidth that your problem becomes even knowing what titles to download." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507472)) "it is amazing to be able to go online and find all sorts of old computer/electronics/whatever magazines" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47360921)) "Libgen, Scihub, Anna's Library, and Archive.org with de-DRM is completely free." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870329)) - Preserves old websites and media (4 comments): "Archive.org had incredible foresight and if it didn't already exist, I'd call such a project a pipe dream." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49290169)) "I'm always thankful for archive.org, but extremely so for preserving bash.org." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47526649)) "In modern times, archive.org is an international treasure." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48741707)) - Free live music, video and shows (4 comments): "archives all of their concert tapings on archive.org" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46071502)) "archive.org has a lot of live music as well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46348350)) "So many great kids shows on there to grab." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255518)) - Often the first place to look (4 comments): "Consider using that one as well as archive.org(when no paywall)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48708861)) "we prefer archive.org links when they're available" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866732)) "You can find a ton of this on archive.org" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48308314)) ## What people warn about - Removes content after takedowns (4 comments): "They take down articles when journalists ask them too and block legal sites from being archived." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50013873)) "I heard stories of incriminating stuff for higher-ups disappearing from archive.org." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838136)) "A monopoly that honors takedown requests is not a reliable record of history." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47284193)) - Pages break or pull live content (4 comments): "It's an ondemand archival site that saves the DOM in such a way that redisplay is faithful, unlike archive.org." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945953)) "The reason archive.org never works, is precisely because it doesn't alter the pages enough." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47102220)) "archive.today is superior to web.archive.org as it breaks less when archiving sources" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594692)) - Third parties can edit archives (2 comments): "Archive.org is awful . It allows site owners and random third parties to edit old archived pages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47476269)) "It allows website owners and third parties to tamper with archived content." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47476462)) - Copyright fights and scraping concerns (2 comments): "who see their adversarial stance with copyright owners as detrimental to the mission of preservation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184025)) "All these archive sites simply scrape away the funding sources and context for attribution." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46973639)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [archive.today](https://hackerapproved.com/p/archive-today.md): 138 recommend - [Internet Archive](https://hackerapproved.com/p/internet-archive.md): 132 recommend - [Unwall](https://hackerapproved.com/p/unwall.md): 12 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://archive.org/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Archive.org", https://hackerapproved.com/p/archive-org/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).