dotenv
Shares rank 16 of 20 secrets managers by recommenders
Developers recommend it for loading app settings from a .env file into environment variables, including in hosting and secrets setups. Critics say the operating system should handle this and that it only moves settings to another file.
Developers recommend it for loading app settings from a .env file into environment variables, including in hosting and secrets setups. Critics say the operating system should handle this and that it only moves settings to another file.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 40%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not 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
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 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
Loads settings from .env files
“That's something that python-dotenv enables. It can pull from environment, which you can wire up from k8s secrets or whatever is the case for your hosting.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Notes on Starting to Use Django” “use python-dotenv to pull settings from environment / .env”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Notes on Starting to Use Django” Convenient for base URL and port
“If you're using it to put APP_BASE_URL or APP_PORT into your env, it's a very convenient one.”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “The Twelve-Factor App (2025)” Good for teaching newcomers
“Teach them to use dotenv.”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “The Twelve-Factor App (2025)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unnecessary, OS should handle this
“we shouldn't need to download something like dotenv to address something the operating system should handle”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “The .env File Nobody Needs” “Dotenv is definitely something that should not exist.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “We Are Forking dotenvy into dotenv-ng” Forked and seen as declining
“the entire reason for this fork is to not do that. Which is dumb.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “We Are Forking dotenvy into dotenv-ng” “I thought dotenv was on its way out!”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Stop paying for Dropbox/Google Drive, use your own S3 bucket instead”
Other secrets managers people recommend
The four most recommended other secrets 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OneCLI | 39 | 8 | 83% | 6 | — | Approved |
| SOPS | 28 | 5 | 85% | 10 | — | Approved |
| HashiCorp Vault | 26 | 10 | 72% | 10 | — | Approved |
| fnox | 20 | 4 | 83% | 9 | — | Approved |
| dotenvThis page | 6 | 9 | 40% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a categorical mistake to include”
“If you're using it to put APP_BASE_URL or APP_PORT into your env, it's a very convenient one.”
“Teach them to use dotenv.”
“the entire reason for this fork is to not do that. Which is dumb.”
“Dotenv is definitely something that should not exist.”
“support is not uniform though”
“I thought dotenv was on its way out!”
“we shouldn't need to download something like dotenv to address something the operating system should handle”
“That's something that python-dotenv enables. It can pull from environment, which you can wire up from k8s secrets or whatever is the case for your hosting.”
“All you are doing is moving those settings to a different file.”
“use python-dotenv to pull settings from environment / .env”
“attempting to load the variables using dotenv will not work”
“Ads. Have you seen the dotenv JavaScript package?”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.