# BoringSSL

7 Hacker News commenters recommended BoringSSL and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a low-level TLS and crypto library, and was unaffected by several January 2026 OpenSSL advisories.

## Why people recommend it

- Named among top alternatives to OpenSSL (3 comments): "there's RustTLS, GnuTLS, BoringSSL, LibreSSL, WolfSSL, NSS, and AWS-LC that come to mind immediately" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47490131)) "compared to WolfSSL, LibreSSL, BoringSSL, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45936232)) "isn't true in LibreSSL, BoringSSL, or AWS-LC" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624990))
- Good low-level crypto library (2 comments): "The arguments against those libs don't apply if using them just for the low level crypto algorithms." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47013087)) "BoringSSL and AWS-LC are the best we have." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47772214))
- Unaffected by recent OpenSSL advisories (2 comments): "BoringSSL was not affected by any of the January 2026 OpenSSL advisories" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46790651)) "isn't true in LibreSSL, BoringSSL, or AWS-LC" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624990))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [BLAKE3](https://hackerapproved.com/p/blake3.md): 16 recommend
- [libsodium](https://hackerapproved.com/p/libsodium.md): 10 recommend
- [AWS-LC](https://hackerapproved.com/p/aws-lc.md): 10 recommend
- [xxhash](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xxhash.md): 9 recommend
- [pyca/cryptography](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pyca-cryptography.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "BoringSSL", https://hackerapproved.com/p/boringssl/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).