# ArchiveBox

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/archivebox/

10 people recommended ArchiveBox in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 12 months, in 8 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free self-hosted tool that saves copies of web pages to fight link rot. Critics say its bundled headless Chromium can get stuck or use lots of RAM.

Summary written by Claude from 17 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Self-hosted archive of web pages (3 comments in the sample): "archive box exists to let you self host your own archive service" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45937768)) "I run an ArchiveBox instance locally." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019419)) "run Archivebox somewhere and pass the URLs into that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47375111))
- Recent release fixes Chrome crashes (3 comments in the sample): "built-in chrome zombie killing at the start of every crawl, so it shouldnt happen anymore" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49821063)) "I promise this release was worth the wait!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808030)) "I appreciate the quick fix on this!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849593))
- Fights link rot for references (2 comments in the sample): "I'm a big fan of archivebox to combat link rot for documents I frequently reference" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49810916)) "For anything I really care about, there's always ArchiveBox." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49456496))

## What people warn about

- Headless Chromium gets stuck or uses RAM (2 comments in the sample): "the bundled Chromium would get stuck almost daily" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812705)) "archivebox eventually had the Chrome instances (as the meme goes) basically consume all available RAM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337312))

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "ArchiveBox", https://hackerapproved.com/p/archivebox/ (10 recommend, 2 mixed, 1 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.