# Git LFS

21 Hacker News commenters recommended Git LFS and 42 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Keeps large binary files out of the main repo so it stays small. Critics call it brittle and buggy, and say binaries still cannot be merged.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well for Unity projects (4 comments): "I've used git+LFS for unity projects without much issue." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48572093)) "I use git+lfs for unity projects and it works out great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49639538)) "git-lfs did the job quite well for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754629))
- Keeps the main repo small (3 comments): "Git LFS can be used to store directly in repo, helping not just with repo size" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156266)) "LFS doesn't really pollute your repo once you get to learn its ergonomics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005258)) "provides a neat way to manage the dep without fattening the main repo" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48573868))
- Enough for most teams (2 comments): "We use git-lfs quite contentedly but we don’t require diffs on binaries" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775506)) "for majority git + LFS is enough." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634511))

## What people warn about

- Breaks often and is buggy (4 comments): "Git LFS is unusually bad. I think the maintainers are trying their best but it is one of those things where there are so many bugs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48575162)) "Git LFS is extremely brittle and will break your local check out if you so much as breath on it wrong" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49640257)) "Git LFS breaks so often that it can't be seen as a serious professional tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571696))
- Easy to reach bad states (3 comments): "you can easily get into weird states with LFS pushing up to two different remotes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47884534)) "it is much easier to get yourself into a bad state with git-lfs than vanilla git" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583575)) "still not great. Users who don't have it configured can still commit binary blobs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48573125))
- Cannot merge or diff binaries (2 comments): "git-lfs is okay but it has some tricky quirks, and you end up with lots of bloat, and you can't merge." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479554)) "Git LFS mostly uses a generic xdelta diff which is kind of mediocre at everything" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571444))
- Setup, auth and team adoption friction (3 comments): "LFS needs an install step and it needed to be brought into git itself to cut through all of the problems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47876820)) "I now have to authenticate my ed25519-sk key with my Yubikey thrice (!) when using LFS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931507)) "but it is annoying to get everyone on your team to work in this workflow" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49385168))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [git-annex](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-annex.md): 15 recommend
- [VisualJJ](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visualjj.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

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