CyberChef
Data transformation tool in Developer tools
A free, comprehensive tool for encoding, decoding and transforming data, with steps that can be chained into pipelines. People say it is versatile enough for web developers as well as security work.
6 people recommended CyberChef in Hacker News comments and none criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 7 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 5 of those comments still count.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- mixed feelings
- 0
- warn against or regret it
- 0
The record
Recommended in 3 of 12 months
In 7 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
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 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
- Recommended in 7 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 33% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, 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 5 of the 9 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
Versatile, useful for debugging and development
“CyberChef is very versatile – perfectly fine for web devs too.”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: HashCodeTools – 17 Free Privacy-Focused Dev Tools” “Very useful when you are debugging a custom encoder.”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: How do you inspect Avro/Protobuf records during debugging?” Comprehensive, well-established toolset
“This is easily one of the most comprehensive tools I have ever seen anyone build”
Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Prism.Tools – Free and privacy-focused developer utilities”
What people recommend instead
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.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dbt | 12 | 4 | 5 | 71% | 7 | — | Approved |
| CyberChefThis page | 6 | 0 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 9 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“sorry bro this is not even close to cyberchef”
“This is easily one of the most comprehensive tools I have ever seen anyone build”
“Very useful when you are debugging a custom encoder.”
“CyberChef is very versatile – perfectly fine for web devs too.”
“with the advantage that you can combine multiple steps to create data transformation pipelines”
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.