BearSSL
Ranked 5 of 5 TLS libraries by recommenders
Free C TLS library people praise as well documented; the main caveat is that it is beta quality and lacks TLS 1.3 support.
Free C TLS library people praise as well documented; the main caveat is that it is beta quality and lacks TLS 1.3 support.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- 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: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not 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
- 6 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
Very well documented
“probably the best documented cryptographic library I've come across”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Why Constant-Time Crypto?” Works when run under a VM
“Doable, I did it under VM, it worked”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Unusual circuits in the Intel 386's standard cell logic”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Beta quality, no TLS 1.3
“it claims beta quality with the latest release in 2018, doesn't support TLS 1.3”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”
Other TLS libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other TLS libraries, 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 5 TLS libraries, rankedWhat people said
4 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“probably the best documented cryptographic library I've come across”
“it claims beta quality with the latest release in 2018, doesn't support TLS 1.3”
“always worth checking in on”
“Doable, I did it under VM, it worked”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.