# LuLu firewall

27 Hacker News commenters recommended LuLu firewall and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend LuLu as a free, simple macOS app for blocking outbound connections and an alternative to Little Snitch. Critics say its interface could use improvements.

## Why people recommend it

- Free alternative to Little Snitch (5 comments): "If you want largely similar features (focused on egress), check out LuLu" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168153)) "Little Snitch or LuLu for fine-grained whitelisting of network requests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48105537)) "For an open-source alternative, consider checking out - Lulu" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46860323))
- Free app for blocking outbound connections (3 comments): "if @op would have had Lulu or LittleSnitch installed, they would probably have noticed (and blocked) suspicious outbound connections" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47534477)) "I use LuLu to block outgoing connections and manually select which connections/apps are allowed. It's free and works just fine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47017984)) "installed LuLu firewall and blocked every outbound to apple.com" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48450594))
- Simple, gives peace of mind (3 comments): "This really is the simplest path to somewhat decent security" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49382157)) "after I switched to LuLu I didn’t miss anything" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451806)) "it's been nice to have that extra peace of mind" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063417))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [pf (OpenBSD Packet Filter)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pf.md): 53 recommend
- [nftables](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nftables.md): 29 recommend
- [iptables](https://hackerapproved.com/p/iptables.md): 15 recommend
- [UFW](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ufw.md): 12 recommend
- [firewalld](https://hackerapproved.com/p/firewalld.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

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