# Bastille

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

10 people recommended Bastille in Hacker News comments and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 12 months, in 7 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a simple, modern tool for creating and managing FreeBSD jails, with Dockerfile-like templates that give a workflow similar to Docker.

Summary written by Claude from 13 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Simple, easy jail management (4 comments in the sample): "I’ve found Bastille really simple and great for creating and managing jails" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47264447)) "a system like Bastille that just wants to get out of your way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45795712)) "It's a nice and modern jail manager." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47110444))
- Docker-like workflow on FreeBSD (4 comments in the sample): "I highly reccomend installing Bastille FreeBSD instead and let the bastille tooling do the heavy lifting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45855623)) "Bastille offers a pretty much identical workflow to docker, but built on FreeBSD jails" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47112450)) "BastilleBSD is another great way to run FreeBSD+jails using their templates" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112055))

## What people warn about

- Fiddly setup for some users (1 comment in the sample): "it felt too fiddly to set up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47110486))
- Not quite mature yet (1 comment in the sample): "I don’t think it’s there yet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47897488))

## 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, "Bastille", https://hackerapproved.com/p/bastille/ (10 recommend, 0 mixed, 2 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 3 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.