aria2
Ranked 2 of 3 download managers by recommenders
Command-line download tool that handles big downloads, torrents and magnet links, and scripts like curl or wget. Common caveat: it does not fully support retries.
Command-line download tool that handles big downloads, torrents and magnet links, and scripts like curl or wget. Common caveat: it does not fully support retries.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Covers most download use cases
“I like using the aria2[0] download utility - I don't think I've downloaded anything bigger than a dozen megabytes through a web browser for the last several years”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Making big downloads resumable in Firefox” “Pretty sure it covers just about every "move this from here to me" use case.”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Making big downloads resumable in Firefox” Scriptable like curl or wget
“aria2c feels more like running curl or wget, much more intuitive for scripting with it”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “A ncurses-based command line torrent client for high performance” “you can use curl, wget, aria2 etc to access online content”
Comment from 27 Jun 2026 in “Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lacks a TUI for multiple torrents
“I prefer aria2c for one go torrent/magnet links although it lacks a proper TUI for handling more than one torrent”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “A ncurses-based command line torrent client for high performance” Does not fully support retries
“it doesn't fully support retries. As in, even if you pass something like”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Making big downloads resumable in Firefox”
Other download managers people recommend
The two most recommended other download managers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetRight | 10 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | Approved |
| aria2This page | 9 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| JDownloader | 6 | 9 | 40% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
7 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it doesn't fully support retries. As in, even if you pass something like”
“You can use aria2c --load-cookies and specify the path to your browser's cookies.”
“Pretty sure it covers just about every "move this from here to me" use case.”
“I like using the aria2[0] download utility - I don't think I've downloaded anything bigger than a dozen megabytes through a web browser for the last several years”
“you can use curl, wget, aria2 etc to access online content”
“I prefer aria2c for one go torrent/magnet links although it lacks a proper TUI for handling more than one torrent”
“aria2c feels more like running curl or wget, much more intuitive for scripting with it”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.