# Kloak

13 Hacker News commenters recommended Kloak and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a privacy-first, open-source secret manager that keeps secrets from apps without requiring any modification. It is early alpha, and critics question its trust and privacy claims.

## Why people recommend it

- Praised as useful and impressive (4 comments): "Awesome project! We need more eBPF projects, and congrats on launching." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47907711)) "Such a sick idea, and incredibly useful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906715)) "This is pretty cool, nice project." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47905133))
- Privacy-first, no email needed (2 comments): "It's a privacy-first alternative. It's still in early alpha days, but have most of the things set up." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46956695)) "Kloak doesn't require email, phone, or personal info to create an account" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46958000))
- Keeps secrets away from apps (2 comments): "OP seems to solve that by never exposing the secrets to the application" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47908920)) "This means the app never actually see the secret (accidental or not)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47909215))
- Open source, built in public (2 comments): "We think building in the open make it easier to earn users trust" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47913136)) "Kloak is open source under the AGPL, contributions are welcome!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47903852))

## What people warn about

- Doubts about trust and privacy (3 comments): "your architecture page is empty. For security products trust is important." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47905293)) "it just looks like you own it and allow us to access it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46957811)) "It is not privacy focused seemingly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46962682))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [OneCLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/onecli.md): 39 recommend
- [SOPS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sops.md): 28 recommend
- [HashiCorp Vault](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hashicorp-vault.md): 26 recommend
- [Agent Vault](https://hackerapproved.com/p/agent-vault.md): 20 recommend
- [AWS Secrets Manager](https://hackerapproved.com/p/aws-secrets-manager.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Kloak", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kloak/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).