# git-annex

15 Hacker News commenters recommended git-annex and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended for managing large files in git repositories, with client-side encryption, deduplicated backups and tracking of file locations across drives.

## Why people recommend it

- Mature, well-built software (2 comments): "git-annex has been around for decades written by one of the best Haskellers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48765989)) "Git annex is a remarkable piece of software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48766889))
- Handles large file collections (2 comments): "Scaling to hundreds of thousands of files is not a problem, scaling beyond that and git will start to get slow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546866)) "git lfs/annex and git sparse "cone" checkouts can get pretty close to hitting the 90 or 95% case" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48574956))
- Encrypted, deduplicated backups (2 comments): "It can do client side encryption and large files as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48663634)) "use borg, restic or git-annex for deduplicating backups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47295810))
- Tracks file locations across drives (2 comments): "that will just keep the hash link in a repo but have the file in a offline drive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49547160)) "the location tracking stuff in git-annex is the only success story I am aware of" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47973345))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Git LFS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-lfs.md): 21 recommend
- [VisualJJ](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visualjj.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

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