Archive.org
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 5 web archives by recommenders
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.
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.
71 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 48
- criticize it
- 23
- approval share
- 68%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 48 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Huge free library of books and magazines
“Anna's Archive, Libgen, and archive.org provide enough bandwidth that your problem becomes even knowing what titles to download.”
Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “A dumpster arrived behind my university's library” “it is amazing to be able to go online and find all sorts of old computer/electronics/whatever magazines”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Vanilla JavaScript refinery simulator built to explain job to my kids” “Libgen, Scihub, Anna's Library, and Archive.org with de-DRM is completely free.”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Books Are Not Remotely Too Expensive” - Comment from 5 May 2026 in “The best is over: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet”
- Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982”
- Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Project Gutenberg – keeps getting better”
Preserves old websites and media
“Archive.org had incredible foresight and if it didn't already exist, I'd call such a project a pipe dream.”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Where did the old web go? We followed 657,607 links to find out” “I'm always thankful for archive.org, but extremely so for preserving bash.org.”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “"Disregard That" Attacks” “In modern times, archive.org is an international treasure.”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Gone but Not Forgotten: Recovering the Dead Web” - Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Booting a PC from a Vinyl Record”
Free live music, video and shows
“archives all of their concert tapings on archive.org”
Comment from 27 Nov 2025 in “Music eases surgery and speeds recovery, study finds” “archive.org has a lot of live music as well”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Backing up Spotify” “So many great kids shows on there to grab.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same” - Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Living Human Brain Cells Play Doom on a CL1”
Often the first place to look
“Consider using that one as well as archive.org(when no paywall)”
Comment from 28 Jun 2026 in “Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast” “we prefer archive.org links when they're available”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 on Hacker News “You can find a ton of this on archive.org”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos” - Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: AI agents play SimCity through a REST API”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Removes content after takedowns
“They take down articles when journalists ask them too and block legal sites from being archived.”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “The value of not getting to the point (2015)” “I heard stories of incriminating stuff for higher-ups disappearing from archive.org.”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “FBI tries to unmask owner of archive.is” “A monopoly that honors takedown requests is not a reliable record of history.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Good Bad ISPs” - Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Keep Our Servers Running”
Pages break or pull live content
“It's an ondemand archival site that saves the DOM in such a way that redisplay is faithful, unlike archive.org.”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Can Ozempic Cure Addiction?” “The reason archive.org never works, is precisely because it doesn't alter the pages enough.”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “Wikipedia bans Archive.today after site executed DDoS and altered web captures” “archive.today is superior to web.archive.org as it breaks less when archiving sources”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Keep Our Servers Running” - Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Cloudflare flags archive.today as "C&C/Botnet"; no longer resolves via 1.1.1.2”
Third parties can edit archives
“Archive.org is awful . It allows site owners and random third parties to edit old archived pages.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Cloudflare flags archive.today as "C&C/Botnet"; no longer resolves via 1.1.1.2” “It allows website owners and third parties to tamper with archived content.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Cloudflare flags archive.today as "C&C/Botnet"; no longer resolves via 1.1.1.2” Copyright fights and scraping concerns
“who see their adversarial stance with copyright owners as detrimental to the mission of preservation”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc” “All these archive sites simply scrape away the funding sources and context for attribution.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Archive.today CAPTCHA page executes DDoS; Wikipedia considers banning site”
Other web archives people recommend
The four most recommended other web archives, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| archive.today | 138 | 230 | 38% | 12 | — | — |
| Internet Archive | 132 | 53 | 71% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Wayback Machine | 57 | 31 | 65% | 11 | — | — |
| Archive.orgThis page | 48 | 23 | 68% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Unwall | 12 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 86 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I'd be worry that the AI adds in robot.txt instruction for archive.org to erase the old versions.”
“They take down articles when journalists ask them too and block legal sites from being archived.”
“archive.today is superior to web.archive.org as it breaks less when archiving sources”
“archive.org removes perfectly legal content from their accessible archives”
“It's annoying how often archive.org blocks sites but they both complement each other very well.”
“Plenty of computer magazines from that era on archive.org.”
“Archive.org had incredible foresight and if it didn't already exist, I'd call such a project a pipe dream.”
“who see their adversarial stance with copyright owners as detrimental to the mission of preservation”
“archive.org both being non-profit, though there are issues with non-profits as well”
“In modern times, archive.org is an international treasure.”
“Consider using that one as well as archive.org(when no paywall)”
“Anna's Archive, Libgen, and archive.org provide enough bandwidth that your problem becomes even knowing what titles to download.”
“You can find a ton of this on archive.org”
“Made by average non-billionaire humans sharing knowledge in the largest free libraries”
“I guess I found book scans on archive.org my preference.”
“This helps because google captcha now sometimes require android phone qr code scanning”
“I have over a terabyte of magazines and books already downloaded”
“Libgen, Scihub, Anna's Library, and Archive.org with de-DRM is completely free.”
“I'm always thankful for archive.org, but extremely so for preserving bash.org.”
“I have also uploaded the github link on archive.org for persistence/archival purposes.”
“Archive.org lets archived pages pull in JavaScript from the non-archived internet”
“It allows website owners and third parties to tamper with archived content.”
“Archive.org is awful . It allows site owners and random third parties to edit old archived pages.”
“it is amazing to be able to go online and find all sorts of old computer/electronics/whatever magazines”
“we can upload videos for free on archive.org right now”
“A monopoly that honors takedown requests is not a reliable record of history.”
“The reason archive.org never works, is precisely because it doesn't alter the pages enough.”
“The way Archive.org does this navigation between multiple versions is quite pleasant to use.”
“Archive.org as the other user pointed out”
“All these archive sites simply scrape away the funding sources and context for attribution.”
“It's an ondemand archival site that saves the DOM in such a way that redisplay is faithful, unlike archive.org.”
“use this as your incentive to support archive.org, who has proven much more accountable.”
“we prefer archive.org links when they're available”
“kudos to archive.org for preserving it”
“Didn't the internet archive (archive.org) take care of everything for you already though?”
“Which highlights why Archive.org is so important as an archival and lending library.”
“archive.org has a lot of live music as well”
“So many great kids shows on there to grab.”
“archives all of their concert tapings on archive.org”
“I heard stories of incriminating stuff for higher-ups disappearing from archive.org.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.