bcachefs
Ranked 4 of 9 filesystems by recommenders
People recommend it for mixing drive sizes and types, per-file replication, strong performance, and outperforming Btrfs and ZFS. Common caveat: it was removed from the mainline Linux kernel and many feel it needs more years to mature.
20 people recommended bcachefs in Hacker News comments, 6 had mixed feelings and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
13 of the 20 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip”.
Summary written by Claude from 52 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 51 of those comments still count.
38 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- mixed feelings
- 6
- warn against or regret it
- 12
The record
Recommended in 8 of 12 months
In 11 different threads.
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 11 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- 13 of its 20 recommenders came from one threadNeeds half or less, not met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 40 of the 57 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Working well for daily use
“Haven't had any issues on a simple mirrored array, which I've been running since before it was in (and out) of the kernel.”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Interview with Kent Overstreet (Bcachefs) [audio]” “I switched my pools to it from ZFS last year and it is working swimmingly.”
Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: Why not AI assisted ZFS rewrite?” “actual users seem happy and my life is far better”
Comment from 21 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” - Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “GEFS on OpenBSD: A Early Preview”
- Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip”
- Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip”
Outperforms Btrfs and other filesystems
“bcachefs has been doing quite a bit better than other filesystems have /after/ they've dropped the experimental level.”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Bcachefs Could Lose Data” “I'm pretty sure Bcachefs is amazing and better than Btrfs.”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” “which is just way more stable and performant than btrfs”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” Mixes devices and per-file replication
“mixing different device tiers and having a per-file/directory replication setting is a god send”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” “You can mix devices of different sizes and types on bcachefs.”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” Active community and support
“Community's still growing, though. A lot of people have gotten active in making sure bcachefs actually works well for people end to end”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” “bcachefs on Arch is a bit better supported, we have the distro package maintainer in the bcachefs IRC channel”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Removed from mainline kernel
“the removal from the mainline kernel has seriously undermined its credibility for use within a company environment”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Bcachefs Could Lose Data” “That factor went away with BcacheFS choosing to not get mainlined into Linux Kernel.”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: Why not AI assisted ZFS rewrite?” “the developer has sabotaged the project into being removed from mainline”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” - Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “A NAS appliance built on bcachefs”
- Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “A NAS appliance built on bcachefs”
- Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Bcachefs creator insists his custom LLM is female and 'fully conscious'”
Reliability and trust concerns
“I've had both btrfs and bcachefs multidevice filesystems lock up read-only on me.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Case study: recovery of a corrupted 12 TB multi-device pool” “it just can't be trusted at the moment”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Interview with Kent Overstreet (Bcachefs) [audio]” “a questionable history of reliability”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” Needs more years to mature
“it simply needs to have a few more years under its belt before I'll be comfortable with it”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “LayerFS: A filesystem for AI coding agents” “Isn't bcachefs even younger and less polished than btrfs?”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Case study: recovery of a corrupted 12 TB multi-device pool” Development setbacks and stalled progress
“bcachefs just hit a setback, which i am hopeful will eventually be resolved”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” “bcachefs came and… appears to have gone nowhere AFAICT”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “I Love FreeBSD”
Other filesystems people recommend
The four most recommended other filesystems, 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 9 filesystems, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 57 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I think bcachefs social problems come in part from its hidden technical deficits.”
“That factor went away with BcacheFS choosing to not get mainlined into Linux Kernel.”
“I switched my pools to it from ZFS last year and it is working swimmingly.”
“it simply needs to have a few more years under its belt before I'll be comfortable with it”
“the current state does not qualify for usage within enterprise environments”
“actual users seem happy and my life is far better”
“which is just way more stable and performant than btrfs”
“it's good enough for me and other users”
“bcachefs just hit a setback, which i am hopeful will eventually be resolved”
“bcachefs on Arch is a bit better supported, we have the distro package maintainer in the bcachefs IRC channel”
“Seeing great results from bcachefs”
“Community's still growing, though. A lot of people have gotten active in making sure bcachefs actually works well for people end to end”
“there is nothing else over there with the same set of features”
“I'm pretty sure Bcachefs is amazing and better than Btrfs.”
“You can mix devices of different sizes and types on bcachefs.”
“mixing different device tiers and having a per-file/directory replication setting is a god send”
“a questionable history of reliability”
“It's relatively easy to get it working as a kernel module at least.”
“the developer has sabotaged the project into being removed from mainline”
“I daily drive bcachefs (it's been great!”
“Given the issues with well-known filesystems like ZFS and BetterFS”
“BcacheFS is really cool and yet another step forward in performance and reliability.”
“bcachefs is slowly working up to what you're describing - describing what you want and letting the filesystem sort it out.”
“there are genuine issues with those”
“Without upstreaming it wouldn't get traction it have now.”
“Upstreaming it in the first place was probably a mistake.”
“I've had both btrfs and bcachefs multidevice filesystems lock up read-only on me.”
“Isn't bcachefs even younger and less polished than btrfs?”
“Does it not also eat data though?”
“reconcile, which puts our data and drive management head and shoulders above other filesystems”
“bcachefs came and… appears to have gone nowhere AFAICT”
“Got it removed from the kernel just in time”
“bcachefs has been doing quite a bit better than other filesystems have /after/ they've dropped the experimental level.”
“the removal from the mainline kernel has seriously undermined its credibility for use within a company environment”
“the reason bcachefs's (and bcache's) btree is so fast is that we use much bigger nodes”
“No erasure coding yet though, so I'm in no rush to migrate my home NAS”
“I do hope that when development slows down and time has passed, you get it upstreamed again.”
“to use the Linux page cache instead of dedicating RAM to ZFS”
“it just can't be trusted at the moment”
“Haven't had any issues on a simple mirrored array, which I've been running since before it was in (and out) of the kernel.”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.