Kiwix
Hacker ApprovedOffline reader in Learning
Free reader that serves Wikipedia and other sites offline for search and reading. Caveats: weak search, and Wikipedia copies can't be updated incrementally.
Free reader that serves Wikipedia and other sites offline for search and reading. Caveats: weak search, and Wikipedia copies can't be updated incrementally.
36 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 33
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 92%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 33 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 11 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 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
Offline Wikipedia and reference sites
“Kiwix has been a great tool for reference (offline Wikipedia, StackOverflow and whatnot).”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Hacker Book – All the HN Belong to You 2006 – 2025” “I've downloaded the entirety of english wikipedia, so I can basically look anything up”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Decentralizing my smartphone with single purpose devices” “some of us set up Kiwix and a local copy of pre-AI Wikipedia that we'll keep forever”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Big Tech's Anti-Labor Playbook Has Come for Wikipedia” - Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine”
- Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “SanDisk launches dongle-like Extreme Fit USB-C flash drive with up to 1 TB”
- Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: Is Wikipedia going to be obsolete soon?”
- Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Disaster planning for regular folks (2015)”
- Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Sony Data Discman”
- Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Claude Code is locking people out for hours”
- Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Project Nomad – Knowledge That Never Goes Offline”
- Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Project Nomad – Knowledge That Never Goes Offline”
Self-hosted with kiwix-serve
“I also have a local `kiwix-serve` serving ZIM files of wikipedia, wiktionary, gutemberg, archwiki, etc. but same problem”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine” “Kiwix basically provides this. You can use kiwix-serve to serve the downloaded zim files locally.”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Offpunk 3.0” “This can also be used to browse zim offline wikipedia files with kiwix-serve.”
Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993” - Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “Firefox Has Integrated Brave's Adblock Engine”
- Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Claude Code is locking people out for hours”
Works on phones and tablets
“I have had Wikipedia on my phone for years, local search is fast enough.”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “SanDisk launches dongle-like Extreme Fit USB-C flash drive with up to 1 TB” “Kiwix has readers for almost every platform, Android, desktop, iPhone.”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Kage – Shadow any website to a single binary for offline viewing” “You can run Kiwix on a tablet with an offline copy of Wikipedia.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Sony Data Discman” - Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Kage – Shadow any website to a single binary for offline viewing”
- Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Hacker Book – All the HN Belong to You 2006 – 2025”
Useful without internet access
“There are viable alternatives to Internet access, notably offline resources as provided by projects such as Kiwix.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Evidence from the One Laptop per Child program in rural Peru” “my offline source of linux knowledge in case I find myself offline”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “I love the work of the ArchWiki maintainers” “It mostly comes in handy on trains with intermittent wifi.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: What travel apps do you use while traveling?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Search results are poor
“it returns too many results and pollute the SearX result page”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine” “the search experience kinda sucks”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Project Nomad – Knowledge That Never Goes Offline” Wikipedia copies cannot update incrementally
“kiwix do not support incremental update of the wikipedia database”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Offpunk 3.0” “Yeah, that’s the biggest disadvantage of kiwix”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Offpunk 3.0”
What people said
36 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“providing less reliability than something like Kiwix to me”
“while providing less reliability than something like Kiwix to me.”
“I keep offline copies of Wikipedia using kiwix, maybe y'all should too.”
“Use Kiwix to parse and search the file.”
“they do package already valuable sites likes Wikipedia, iFixit, archwiki”
“it returns too many results and pollute the SearX result page”
“I also have a local `kiwix-serve` serving ZIM files of wikipedia, wiktionary, gutemberg, archwiki, etc. but same problem”
“you should get a more stable output using that data”
“Kiwix has readers for almost every platform, Android, desktop, iPhone.”
“The desktop reader app is pretty good in my experience.”
“before Kiwix and the amazing zim dumps they produce”
“you can have the whole wiki loaded with full search available locally. check out kiwix.”
“some of us set up Kiwix and a local copy of pre-AI Wikipedia that we'll keep forever”
“That seems enough for most of my day to day use.”
“Being able to selfhost kiwix is a superb internet experience”
“Use kiwix to selfhost Wikipedia, stackoverflow and devdocs”
“the search experience kinda sucks”
“that'll do Wikipedia and a bunch of other resources”
“You can use Kiwix, OpenStreetMap and Kolibri as an AI-free equivalent.”
“with Kiwix I could browse pre-downloaded Wikis”
“This can also be used to browse zim offline wikipedia files with kiwix-serve.”
“my offline source of linux knowledge in case I find myself offline”
“Yeah, that’s the biggest disadvantage of kiwix”
“kiwix do not support incremental update of the wikipedia database”
“Kiwix basically provides this. You can use kiwix-serve to serve the downloaded zim files locally.”
“I've downloaded the entirety of english wikipedia, so I can basically look anything up”
“You can run Kiwix on a tablet with an offline copy of Wikipedia.”
“I have a local kiwix box that serves the entire english wikipedia”
“The easiest way to get this is probably Kiwix.”
“It mostly comes in handy on trains with intermittent wifi.”
“Right now I have Kiwix and Libby. It works really well.”
“I use it all the time now that I have a dumb phone”
“Kiwix has been a great tool for reference (offline Wikipedia, StackOverflow and whatnot).”
“There are viable alternatives to Internet access, notably offline resources as provided by projects such as Kiwix.”
“indulge in an occasional download frenzy from the awsome site you linked”
“I have had Wikipedia on my phone for years, local search is fast enough.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.