# GnuPG 40 Hacker News commenters recommended GnuPG and 46 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Free, long-trusted tool for encrypting and signing files and email, with no central authority needed. Critics say its codebase and design are outdated and hard for non-experts. ## Why people recommend it - Long track record in real use (4 comments): "has worked well for me for nearly three decades" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46084423)) "And Snowden used gpg and I haven't heard of a single message of his having been decrypted." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255152)) "we do know that GnuPG worked for the highest profile case imaginable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785242)) - No central authority or PKI needed (3 comments): "GPG signing is useful exactly because it doesn't rely on a central PKI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728118)) "PGP is the only standardized cryptographic online identity layer we have" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915311)) "because I control the key, not some application or company that embeds encryption into their product" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931668)) - Versatile and widely compatible (3 comments): "I would prefer GnuPG for the availability and compatibility reasons" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498425)) "OpenPGP/GnuPG is more resilient and versatile than those, still usable where those are not." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488269)) "GnuPG has a lot of more features than signing and file encryption." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405606)) - Free copyleft with no vendor (2 comments): "GnuPG for all its flaws has a copyleft license (GPL3) making it difficult to "embrace extend extinguish"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46407402)) "gpg has the advantage that there is no money in it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46472498)) ## What people warn about - Hard for nontechnical users (3 comments): "key management is a massive hassle for nontechnical users" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48489470)) "The keyring circus (which is how GPG most commonly intrudes into my life) is crazy too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46404823)) "GnuPG has keyrings, and it really wants to use them and to find them in some home directory." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46407914)) - Departs from OpenPGP standards (4 comments): "GnuPG no longer conforms to modern OpenPGP standards and is the IE6 grade implementation that we should stop talking about and using" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47709738)) "GnuPG's implementation is entirely incompatible with the IETF-specified format, which all other libraries are implementing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47908783)) "GnuPG abandoned the global standardization processes and in doing so forced an expensive migration to successors" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302161)) - Outdated code and design (3 comments): "a C codebase with nearly no tests, no CI pipeline(!!), an architecture that is basically a statemachine with side effects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45782524)) "I would not recommend generating keys with GnuPG today any more than I would recommend using Internet Explorer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919820)) "PGP/GPG are of course hamstrung by their own decision to be a Swiss Army knife/only loosely coupled to the secure operation itself" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403833)) - Unsafe defaults users hit (4 comments): "GPG should probably do more to protect users from shooting themselves in the foot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46404373)) "that argument seems to be used to justify having it behave the same way it always has, which leads to dangerous situations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405310)) "GPG's position was: they print, in those circumstances, an error of some sort , and that's enough." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46404589)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [age encryption tool](https://hackerapproved.com/p/age.md): 49 recommend - [PGP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pgp.md): 38 recommend - [GPG](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gpg.md): 23 recommend - [Cryptomator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cryptomator.md): 18 recommend - [Sequoia PGP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sequoia-pgp.md): 12 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "GnuPG", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnupg/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).