# Lobsters Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/lobsters/ 87 people recommended Lobsters in Hacker News comments, 16 had mixed feelings and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 66 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** An invite-only, HN-like tech forum with tag filters (including for AI content), stronger moderation and more technical, less startup-focused discussion; critics cite hard joining, groupthink and heavy-handed moderation. Summary written by Claude from 54 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 53 of those comments still count. Claude agents reviewed it against the quotes on 2 Nov 2026. ## Why people recommend it - Tag filtering, including AI content (7 comments in the sample): "lobste.rs has a filter for AI/LLM related content if you want pre-2023 computing fare without the slop and upheaval" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49037443)) "Invite only, which keeps the quality up, and the tag system lets you actually filter what you see." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221716)) "Lobsters has all the same stories as this place but lets me filter out vibe coding articles" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745824)) - More technical, less startup culture (7 comments in the sample): "It's a wonderful place. It feels like HN, but with the Silicon Valley attitude dialed way way way down" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48952472)) "Lobste.rs mostly are what HN used to be, with less focus on startup culture and more focus on hacking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46930076)) "Lobsters has better technical signal/noise but is much more bitter, zero sum, and political." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459386)) - Invite tree keeps quality up (6 comments in the sample): "Lobste.rs is a good if not extreme example: it's kind of a vouch system for the people you refer and there's pretty good moderation to…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527803)) "I've become a big fan of lobste.rs' invitation tree approach, where the reputation of new accounts rides on the reputation of older accounts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47153819)) "it comes with the benefit of creating an association graph of accounts that allows for swift moderation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48408396)) - Good moderation and transparency tools (2 comments in the sample): "they have a moderation policy which forbids the most egregious forms of advertising and astroturfing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49659640)) "There's lots of good ideas between the tagging, flag explanations, the moderation log, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47678900)) ## What people warn about - Groupthink and hostile, political atmosphere (5 comments in the sample): "It’s a site where you learn to keep your mouth shut if your input doesn’t agree with what the core users want to hear." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48952568)) "the moderators and most of the remaining userbase of Lobsters are American political left-progressives" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081973)) "The experience there is more heavily aligned toward groupthink and the “right” opinions than even HN" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670667)) - Invite-only, hard to join (3 comments in the sample): "That looks interesting, but I feel like it’s likely to be close to impossible to join." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47303276)) "I like Lobsters' design and would love to switch over, but it's still invite-only" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48835494)) "Mostly HN reposts and extremely limited ability to post there if you don't have Bay Area social circles." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46061067)) - Duplicates HN stories, small community (2 comments in the sample): "OK, Lobste.rs has some merit, but the problem there is that the community there is arguably still a little too small" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066891)) "Lobste.rs would be far more interesting to me if by default it did not have the same posts as HN." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082840)) - Biased or heavy-handed moderation (1 comment in the sample): "in practice it's mostly one moderator running the show and deleting comments they don't like" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46085286)) ## Other discussion forums people recommend - [Hacker News](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hacker-news/): 258 recommend, 81 mixed, 140 criticize - [Reddit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/reddit/): 111 recommend, 113 mixed, 933 criticize - [Old Reddit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/old-reddit/): 52 recommend, 7 mixed, 44 criticize - [Slashdot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slashdot/): 22 recommend, 9 mixed, 18 criticize ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://lobste.rs/) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Lobsters", https://hackerapproved.com/p/lobsters/ (87 recommend, 16 mixed, 25 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.