earlyoom
Hacker ApprovedOut-of-memory daemon
Free Linux daemon that kills memory-hungry processes before the system freezes, and works well out of the box. Critics say it does not fully fix memory problems and can kill too aggressively.
Free Linux daemon that kills memory-hungry processes before the system freezes, and works well out of the box. Critics say it does not fully fix memory problems and can kill too aggressively.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 23
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 85%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 23 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Kills apps before system freezes
“software like earlyoom and similar, that basically tried to preempt oomkiller and kill something before it gets to sluggish state”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Vm.overcommit_memory=2 is the right setting for servers” “After setting up earlyoom to gracefully start shutting stuff down at a threshold before hitting oom, robustly works all the time”
Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Linux 7.2 Released” “run something like earlyoom to stop the system from reaching a low-RAM situation in the first place”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Linux 7.0 Broke PostgreSQL: The Preemption Regression Explained” - Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Vm.overcommit_memory=2 is the right setting for servers”
- Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Modernizing swapping: virtual swap spaces”
- Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM”
Works out of the box
“Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me.”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM” “They usually work out of the box”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM” Configurable with prefer and avoid flags
“earlyoom has been around a long time, and has an --avoid flag.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Modernizing swapping: virtual swap spaces” “EarlyOOM is pretty configurable, if you care to check it out.”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” “You can use `earlyoom --prefer firefox --avoid xlock`.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Re: [PATCH] OOM_pardon, a.k.a. don't kill my xlock” Safety net alongside swap
“Swap + zswap + earlyoom is a great safety need incase things get hairy.”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead” “I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “Haiku R1/beta6 has been released” “I always install earlyoom for that reason”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Does not fully fix the problem
“I've had a 'better' experience, but I guess it's not really fixed yet.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11” “From my experience it does not help much”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11” Kills processes too aggressively
“I could not find the right balance between unexpected OOM kills and missing the brownouts”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Debunking Zswap and Zram Myths” “it's too aggressive. It kills stuff too quickly.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Modernizing swapping: virtual swap spaces”
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 | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| earlyoomThis page | 23 | 4 | 85% | 10 | — | Approved |
| systemd-oomd | 13 | 7 | 65% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
26 of the 30 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“earlyoom userspace OOM killer”
“Swap + zswap + earlyoom is a great safety need incase things get hairy.”
“A strange behavior I sometimes run into with earlyoom is that I try to start up some buggy software of mine and it seemingly never starts.”
“I recommend using the earlyoom if you want more aggresive oom kill”
“I always install earlyoom for that reason”
“I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM”
“After setting up earlyoom to gracefully start shutting stuff down at a threshold before hitting oom, robustly works all the time”
“Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me.”
“They usually work out of the box”
“it'll crash the process instead of hang”
“another option is to use a package like earlyoom”
“There's user space oom options, like oomd, earlyoom ... but I'm not sure any heuristic really knows what user space program to clobber.”
“I also have become fond of earlyoom”
“You can use `earlyoom --prefer firefox --avoid xlock`.”
“running the earlyoom daemon will let you do exactly that in userspace”
“run something like earlyoom to stop the system from reaching a low-RAM situation in the first place”
“I've had a 'better' experience, but I guess it's not really fixed yet.”
“From my experience it does not help much”
“even earlyoom took several minutes to trigger and in the meantime the system was essentially non-responsive”
“I could not find the right balance between unexpected OOM kills and missing the brownouts”
“it's too aggressive. It kills stuff too quickly.”
“earlyoom has been around a long time, and has an --avoid flag.”
“I'd rather have one app die than the whole system.”
“EarlyOOM is pretty configurable, if you care to check it out.”
“userspace daemons like earlyoom that help a lot with this”
“software like earlyoom and similar, that basically tried to preempt oomkiller and kill something before it gets to sluggish state”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.