# DN42

5 Hacker News commenters recommended DN42 and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend DN42 as a free, safe lab for learning BGP routing and networking at ISP level, with a friendly community. It takes real effort to get value from it.

## Why people recommend it

- Safe, free place to learn networking (3 comments): "If your goal is to learn this stuff join dn42, the global networking lab, instead of wasting money with real allocations." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936682)) "It's a great way to explore routing technologies and safely experiment with your own AS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46935948)) "dn42 is really cool for learning networking at the ISP level" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48505307))
- Good playground for routing experiments (2 comments): "DN42 is a great playground for this thing - as long as you're prepared to put the effort in" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502778)) "It's a great way to explore routing technologies and safely experiment with your own AS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46935948))
- Friendly, great community (2 comments): "it's the people that really make the network." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502210)) "the community seems great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48501623))

## What people warn about

- Requires significant effort to get value (1 comments): "DN42 is a great playground for this thing - as long as you're prepared to put the effort in" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502778))

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://dn42.eu/Home)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "DN42", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dn42/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).