# FUSE

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/fuse/

13 people recommended FUSE in Hacker News comments, 5 had mixed feelings and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 12 months, in 11 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Lets developers build filesystems in userspace without kernel code, valued for flexibility and portability. Critics say it is slow and hard to set up.

Summary written by Claude from 31 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 30 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Easy and fun to write against (2 comments in the sample): "I didn’t really see the appeal until I learned how to use FUSE." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670653)) "extremely fun and easy to write against" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582006))
- Flexible way to expose anything as files (2 comments in the sample): "can't stop thinking about what else I can filesystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586249)) "It mapped to a filesystem concept nearly flawlessly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49219765))
- Portable across operating systems (2 comments in the sample): "so I swapped to Fuse (which I also use on Windows" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550055)) "FUSE is great for portability, too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49684914))
- Good fit for file-based designs (2 comments in the sample): "Could totally have FUSE over the chunks and then there is no shell emilation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47633983)) "I'd either go with a FUSE-based design" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47637183))

## What people warn about

- Slow performance compared to alternatives (3 comments in the sample): "FUSE is dog slow and it's a bad hack compared to mount anything anywhere in 9front" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47296431)) "FUSE is a phenomenal idea but anyone who has used it knows how slow it can be." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250576)) "FUSE it's a dog slow toy in comparison" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47292383))
- Requires kernel and permission trade-offs (2 comments in the sample): "It requires Fuse and giving permissions to the kernel." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925424)) "FUSE on Mac seems to be a kernel/permissions mess." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081985))
- Poor fit for some designs (2 comments in the sample): "using fuse as a wrapper for a REST API is ineffective and redundant" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588246)) "we used fuse and we learnt we shouldn't for a sandbox filesystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48251906))

## Other filesystems people recommend

- [ZFS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zfs/): 239 recommend, 34 mixed, 49 criticize
- [Btrfs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/btrfs/): 63 recommend, 31 mixed, 79 criticize
- [ext4](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ext4/): 27 recommend, 3 mixed, 4 criticize
- [bcachefs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bcachefs/): 20 recommend, 6 mixed, 12 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "FUSE", https://hackerapproved.com/p/fuse/ (13 recommend, 5 mixed, 9 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.