AWS CLI
Ranked 15 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders
Official command-line tool for AWS services, used to script and automate cloud tasks; critics find its bundled Python runtime bloated and its JSON output and syntax awkward.
Official command-line tool for AWS services, used to script and automate cloud tasks; critics find its bundled Python runtime bloated and its JSON output and syntax awkward.
35 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 13
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Smooth, reliable access to AWS
“The compatibility with the AWS CLI was mostly excellent in my experiences.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Ministack (Replacement for LocalStack)” “It's made working with AWS really smooth.”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left” “AWS CLI is doing just fine”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “I Still Prefer MCP over Skills” - Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “Ministack (Replacement for LocalStack)”
Useful for scripting and queries
“I can use aws command line to get internal ips behind the lb to curl to grep and find it in minutes”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Improved Git Diffs with Delta, Fzf and a Little Shell Scripting” “I found that useful since I don't have to expose any secrets to it, just a static set of commands”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Typebase – A single-folder back end you write in TypeScript” “The AWS CLI has a convenient "s3 sync" command that does a one-way directory sync”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “You said no MCP” Official AWS tool, temporary credentials
“you can use the AWS CLI to sign you in and that goes through the HTTPS auth flow to provide you with temporary access keys”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Shai-Hulud compromised a dev machine and raided GitHub org access: a post-mortem” “Official AWS cli from AWS is a bit different than "random binary off the internet"”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Terminal UI for AWS” Easy for agents and learners
“it vastly improves readability, especially for those learning the syntax”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “Building a CLI for All of Cloudflare” “agents use it with a great effect even without any relevant skill”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Let your Coding Agent debug the browser session with Chrome DevTools MCP” “GitHub & AWS it already knows how to operate the CLIs well”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “MCP Is Dead”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Bundles Python runtime, feels bloated
“Neither of these tools benefit the user by being in Python and distributing a runtime just for a CLI tool.”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Cf: The Agentic CLI for the Cloudflare API” “personally traumatized by the miniature standalone py3 distribution bundled within the aws cli”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Cf: The Agentic CLI for the Cloudflare API” “hard to find a more bloated mess of strung together scripts held together by tape”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” Confusing syntax and inconsistent flags
“lovecraftian combination of positional arguments, named arguments, piping, json documents”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran” “It thinks it knows aws cli, for instance, but there's some flags that don't exist”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Gemini 3.5: frontier intelligence with action” “AWSCLI's schizophrenic use (or not) of pagers for tiny results, on the other hand, is less defensible.”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Interview with Mitchell Hashimoto about Ghostty and Zig” Defaults to JSON output
“I am continuously irritated that the AWS CLI defaults to outputting in JSON.”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Interview with Mitchell Hashimoto about Ghostty and Zig” “the AWS CLI defaults to outputting in JSON”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Interview with Mitchell Hashimoto about Ghostty and Zig” Slow transfers from CLI overhead
“The shell script wasn’t the performance issue, it was the fact that the shell script was calling the AWS CLI rather than the SDK.”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “When I reject AI code even if it works” “it's the transport and protocol overhead that are burning the extra CPU time (power)”
Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Show HN: Raptor – fast, energy efficient small file uploads to S3” “waiting for aws-cli to finish transfers”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Skouriasmeno Papaki – S3 transfer tool, up to 12x faster than AWS-CLI”
Other privilege escalation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, 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.
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, rankedWhat people said
32 of the 35 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The AWS CLI has a convenient "s3 sync" command that does a one-way directory sync”
“Yeah, and they're terrible.”
“Neither of these tools benefit the user by being in Python and distributing a runtime just for a CLI tool.”
“personally traumatized by the miniature standalone py3 distribution bundled within the aws cli”
“lovecraftian combination of positional arguments, named arguments, piping, json documents”
“I found that useful since I don't have to expose any secrets to it, just a static set of commands”
“that just sounds like bad design”
“AWSCLI's schizophrenic use (or not) of pagers for tiny results, on the other hand, is less defensible.”
“the AWS CLI defaults to outputting in JSON”
“I am continuously irritated that the AWS CLI defaults to outputting in JSON.”
“The shell script wasn’t the performance issue, it was the fact that the shell script was calling the AWS CLI rather than the SDK.”
“That's...exactly what the AWS CLI does.”
“GitHub & AWS it already knows how to operate the CLIs well”
“It thinks it knows aws cli, for instance, but there's some flags that don't exist”
“forgot the correct cli parameter for it”
“It's made working with AWS really smooth.”
“AWS CLI??? Holy guacamole, what a mess.”
“if you're careful about what creds you give it”
“it's the transport and protocol overhead that are burning the extra CPU time (power)”
“but that comes with a bunch of extra friction.”
“it vastly improves readability, especially for those learning the syntax”
“AWS CLI is doing just fine”
“I guess the CLI itself has mostly worked”
“The compatibility with the AWS CLI was mostly excellent in my experiences.”
“I can use aws command line to get internal ips behind the lb to curl to grep and find it in minutes”
“It literally took 30 minutes to install aws cli on my 2020 mbp.”
“agents use it with a great effect even without any relevant skill”
“hard to find a more bloated mess of strung together scripts held together by tape”
“this is the aws cli tool it takes one string as an argument”
“Official AWS cli from AWS is a bit different than "random binary off the internet"”
“waiting for aws-cli to finish transfers”
“you can use the AWS CLI to sign you in and that goes through the HTTPS auth flow to provide you with temporary access keys”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.