Gwtar
Ranked 2 of 5 file formats by recommenders
Recommended as a single-file HTML archive format that needs no special hosting setup or software. Critics say large files load slowly and some examples fail in browsers.
Recommended as a single-file HTML archive format that needs no special hosting setup or software. Critics say large files load slowly and some examples fail in browsers.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Single file, no server setup
“The benefit of being a single-file, with zero configuration or special software required by anyone who ever hosts or rehosts a Gwtar in the future”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “and doesn't require any additional, custom infrastructure to run/serve”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “Gwtar works with any server out of the box”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” Simple tools, easy to build
“It's a single-binary program that's easy to compile.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “it's literally a Bash one-liner”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Example pages fail in some browsers
“for whatever reason my Brave mobile on iOS displays a blank page for the example page”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “the first example link doesn't work at all for me in Safari”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “It also doesn't work on desktop Safari 26.2 (or perhaps it does, but not to the extent intended”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” - Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format”
Files need a web server
“These gwtar files don't work without a server apparently either.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “those can't easily be opened from a local file”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format” “this format doesn't work without a web server”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format”
Other file formats people recommend
The four most recommended other file formats, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Parquet | 40 | 17 | 70% | 12 | — | Approved |
| GwtarThis page | 10 | 7 | 59% | 1 | — | — |
| Safetensors | 7 | 2 | 78% | 4 | — | — |
| JSON Canvas | 7 | 3 | 70% | 2 | — | — |
| F3 file format | 6 | 5 | 55% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I picked it because of the folder option which makes grepping for content easier and faster.”
“It's a single-binary program that's easy to compile.”
“this makes archiving so much easier”
“The benefit of being a single-file, with zero configuration or special software required by anyone who ever hosts or rehosts a Gwtar in the future”
“it's literally a Bash one-liner”
“your format doesn't solve the trilemma; you have 'static' and 'single-file', but not 'efficient'”
“Gwtar works with any server out of the box”
“I suppose it's not efficient in that sense. As I said, the browser has to unpack the whole thing first, so you see a spinner when opening large files.”
“These gwtar files don't work without a server apparently either.”
“and doesn't require any additional, custom infrastructure to run/serve”
“the first example link doesn't work at all for me in Safari”
“That's why we created Gwtar and I didn't just use SingleFileZ.”
“It also doesn't work on desktop Safari 26.2 (or perhaps it does, but not to the extent intended”
“The example link doesn't work for me at all in iOS safari?”
“those can't easily be opened from a local file”
“Gwtar seems like a good solution to a problem nobody seemed to want to fix.”
“for whatever reason my Brave mobile on iOS displays a blank page for the example page”
“this format doesn't work without a web server”
“Gwtar seems more complicated than a WARC, while being less flexible”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.