# Lightning Network 31 Hacker News commenters recommended Lightning Network and 20 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People recommend it for near-instant, cheap bitcoin payments, especially small ones. The most common caveat is centralization and unreliable fees. ## Why people recommend it - Fast, near-instant settlement (7 comments): "the lightning network is evolving too, making anonyous (to a certain extend), sub-second, off-chain transactions possible at way better efficiency regarding energy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892315)) "Modern Lightning, a layer 2 solution based on Bitcoin, does Bitcoin transactions in less than a second for less than any Visa fee." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892570)) "Lightning - a fast, instant, bitcoin layer 2 network - is perfectly sufficient for micropayments." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49223445)) - Better privacy than on-chain (7 comments): "the lightning network is evolving too, making anonyous (to a certain extend), sub-second, off-chain transactions possible at way better efficiency regarding energy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892315)) "Of course, only in conjunction with Lightning (a layer 2 solution building on Bitcoin with anonymity and instant transaction settlement)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46965675)) "Lightning payments are not stored onchain and have already been proved more private than monero payments" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49011541)) - Very low transaction fees (6 comments): "Modern Lightning, a layer 2 solution based on Bitcoin, does Bitcoin transactions in less than a second for less than any Visa fee." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892570)) "the layer 2 lighting network that can process more transactions than Visa and MC combined with very cheap fees" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556337)) "you can literally send 10cent right now to someone at the other end of the world" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190108)) - Suited to micropayments (5 comments): "Lightning - a fast, instant, bitcoin layer 2 network - is perfectly sufficient for micropayments." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49223445)) "you can literally send 10cent right now to someone at the other end of the world" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190108)) "Lightning is actually the only truly scalable solution we have for micropayments" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47461645)) ## What people warn about - Centralized in practice (2 comments): "Lightning has mostly done this by being a lot more centralized in practice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47734319)) "Their famous Lightening L2 is an abomination of hacks and centralization and it still doesn't scale." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192629)) - Not fully private (3 comments): "It's not private. People are going to be linking these things to their identities on crypto exchanges." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226288)) "Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47846453)) "it only "preserves privacy" when you're extremely careful with how you use it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911840)) - High fees at times (2 comments): "I'm looking at the transaction fees for lightning network and they are in the range of FedNow or RTP." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49008222)) "I had a terrible experience trying out Lightning. I hit high fees sending Lightning transactions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851120)) - Doesn't scale well (3 comments): "Their famous Lightening L2 is an abomination of hacks and centralization and it still doesn't scale." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192629)) "The current actual throughput of the Lightning Network is estimated at around 300 TPS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557533)) "it is only viable if adoption by number of nodes and TVL grew by orders of magnitude" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851680)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Pix](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pix.md): 65 recommend - [UPI (Unified Payments Interface)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/upi.md): 58 recommend - [GNU Taler](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnu-taler.md): 37 recommend - [x402](https://hackerapproved.com/p/x402.md): 35 recommend - [Visa card](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visa.md): 34 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Lightning Network", https://hackerapproved.com/p/lightning-network/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).