dnf
Hacker ApprovedRanked 15 of 35 package managers by recommenders
Recommended for installing, updating and removing packages on Fedora and other RPM-based systems, with transaction history that makes changes easy to undo.
Recommended for installing, updating and removing packages on Fedora and other RPM-based systems, with transaction history that makes changes easy to undo.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 72%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- 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: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Transaction history makes changes undoable
“dnf/rpm updates being transactional and easy to undo with `dnf history`”
Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “Making Debian or Fedora persistent live images” “Stick to RPM based systems as dnf supports transactions.”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Linux from Scratch” “There's no such issue with dnf, it has `dnf history`”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: A lightweight CLI tool to track and purge temporary packages in Linux” Simple, transparent, centrally configurable
“I found working with normal `dnf` and normal config files much easier than dealing with Ignition and Butane.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “I Cannot SSH into My Server Anymore (and That's Fine)” “Simple, non-invasive, transparent, (almost) all-encompassing, and centrally configurable.”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “LittleSnitch for Linux” “dnf and zypper both make it easy to be explicit about the priorities of your repos”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “AURpocalypse now: a look at the recent AUR attacks” Fast, reliable upgrades
“IME, dnf5 is pretty much on par, if not better, in terms of speed.”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Why do you use Ubuntu?” “Dnf is GOAT, upgrades don't break shit”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” Maintainer-signed packages instead of curl-bash
“apt/dnf scripts run on packages a maintainer signed and a distro gatekept”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “NPM packages from RedHat have been compromised” “we always ought to prefer apt, dnf, over the likes of curlbash, brew, npm”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “The browser catches homograph attacks. Your terminal doesn't”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Heavy memory use and slower than apt
“package manager like dnf consumes about 1GB of memory just to fetch package metadata”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Ubuntu now has higher system hardware requirements than Windows 11” “dnf seems comparatively slow compared to apt”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Why do you use Ubuntu?”
Other package managers people recommend
The four most recommended other package managers, 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 35 package managers, rankedWhat people said
24 of the 26 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Do package managers for Linux distros have this, like dnf/yum/apt/pacman?”
“IME, dnf5 is pretty much on par, if not better, in terms of speed.”
“dnf seems comparatively slow compared to apt”
“are the best for most people, myself included.”
“So if you use standard dnf to handle that it will do cleanup in chronological order”
“There's no such issue with dnf, it has `dnf history`”
“dnf and zypper both make it easy to be explicit about the priorities of your repos”
“Running apt upgrade or dnf upgrade can render your system unbootable if you're unlucky”
“dnf/rpm updates being transactional and easy to undo with `dnf history`”
“apt/dnf scripts run on packages a maintainer signed and a distro gatekept”
“Simple, non-invasive, transparent, (almost) all-encompassing, and centrally configurable.”
“The dnf autorefresh service bit me running a small Alma instance for the first time.”
“package manager like dnf consumes about 1GB of memory just to fetch package metadata”
“They finally fixed it with dnf (C++)”
“"sudo dnf install hyprland" works fine”
“Sadly DNF blows up the images so it was hard to minify it much.”
“we always ought to prefer apt, dnf, over the likes of curlbash, brew, npm”
“dnf just puts the file with .rpmnew extension to prevent these kinds of problems”
“Stick to RPM based systems as dnf supports transactions.”
“Pacman can rot in hell, apt is okay, but oh boy, do I love dnf.”
“I found working with normal `dnf` and normal config files much easier than dealing with Ignition and Butane.”
“Dnf is GOAT, upgrades don't break shit”
“moving from apt to dnf or whatever it was causes too much friction for me”
“Competent package managers (e.g. dnf) remove unneeded packages and all their owned files.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.