GNU Stow
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 4 dotfile managers by recommenders
Recommended for managing dotfiles and /usr/local installs as symlinks. Main caveat: handling machine-specific changes is awkward.
Recommended for managing dotfiles and /usr/local installs as symlinks. Main caveat: handling machine-specific changes is awkward.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Dotfiles management via symlink farms
“makes provisioning a new machine with my configs and other such files much easier”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Dotfiles Management” “Have you considered using a dotfiles management solution like gnu stow?”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Claude-Config – Dotfiles for Claude Code” “If what you want is an orchestrated symlink farm, here's your dude.”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Coi – A language that compiles to WASM, beats React/Vue” Manages /usr/local installs
“I use GNU stow as a parallel package manager within /usr/local that plays nice with the rest of the OS.”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Linux Terminal Memory Usage” “stow is an indispensable tool for me to manage /usr/local for manually installed software”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Migrating from GNU Stow to Chezmoi”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Symlinks caused problems for some
“symlinks would cause any issues. They did.”
Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Migrating from GNU Stow to Chezmoi” “I had similar problems with GNU Stow”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Migrating from GNU Stow to Chezmoi” Not flexible enough for some
“realised that I was actually not happy with it”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Migrating from GNU Stow to Chezmoi” “after finding Stow not flexible enough”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Migrating from GNU Stow to Chezmoi”
Other dotfile managers people recommend
The three most recommended other dotfile managers, with 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Manager | 31 | 15 | 67% | 12 | — | Approved |
| chezmoi | 21 | 6 | 78% | 7 | — | Approved |
| GNU StowThis page | 14 | 5 | 74% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Nix with Home Manager | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
16 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it has already fully replaced brew, stow and direnv”
“after finding Stow not flexible enough”
“i find this better than putting all of ~/.config in git, since i don't necessarily want everything there to be version controlled.”
“I don't understand why anyone would bother doing something like Stow”
“The only thing currently annoying me with my Stow setup is handling machine-specific changes.”
“symlinks would cause any issues. They did.”
“for me this bidirectional nature of symlinks are a feature, not a bug in this management system”
“realised that I was actually not happy with it”
“stow is an indispensable tool for me to manage /usr/local for manually installed software”
“settled when I find the —-no-folding flag”
“I had similar problems with GNU Stow”
“I use GNU stow as a parallel package manager within /usr/local that plays nice with the rest of the OS.”
“If what you want is an orchestrated symlink farm, here's your dude.”
“Have you considered using a dotfiles management solution like gnu stow?”
“Keep the alternate sets in different subdirectories.”
“makes provisioning a new machine with my configs and other such files much easier”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.