# firewalld

11 Hacker News commenters recommended firewalld and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a maintainable alternative to UFW that won't grow unwieldy, but critics find its interface and zone concepts complicated.

## Why people recommend it

- Stays maintainable, unlike UFW rules (3 comments): "firewalld is a much better pick in current year and will not grow unmaintainable the way UFW rules can." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46310380)) "firewalld is a much better pick in current year and will not grow unmaintainable the way UFW rules can" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46307719)) "will not grow unmaintainable the way UFW rules can" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46307250))
- Better pick than UFW currently (3 comments): "firewalld is a much better pick in current year" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306974)) "firewalld is a much better pick in current year and will not grow unmaintainable the way UFW rules can." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46310380)) "firewalld is a much better pick in current year and will not grow unmaintainable the way UFW rules can" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46307719))

## What people warn about

- Complicated UX and zone concepts (3 comments): "Why should I bother learning about zones and abstract away ports, adresses, interfaces etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46310878)) "The problem with firewalld is that it has the worst UX of any program I know." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46309570)) "firewall-cmd is way too complicated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46317436))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [pf (OpenBSD Packet Filter)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pf.md): 53 recommend
- [nftables](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nftables.md): 29 recommend
- [LuLu firewall](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lulu.md): 27 recommend
- [iptables](https://hackerapproved.com/p/iptables.md): 15 recommend
- [UFW](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ufw.md): 12 recommend

## Cite as

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