LuLu firewall
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 8 firewalls by recommenders
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.
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.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 27
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 27 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Free alternative to Little Snitch
“If you want largely similar features (focused on egress), check out LuLu”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “New AirSnitch attack breaks Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises” “Little Snitch or LuLu for fine-grained whitelisting of network requests”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan” “For an open-source alternative, consider checking out - Lulu”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors” - Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “LittleSnitch for Linux”
- Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors”
Free app for blocking outbound connections
“if @op would have had Lulu or LittleSnitch installed, they would probably have noticed (and blocked) suspicious outbound connections”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack” “I use LuLu to block outgoing connections and manually select which connections/apps are allowed. It's free and works just fine.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “7zip.com Is Serving Malware” “installed LuLu firewall and blocked every outbound to apple.com”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Stop the Apple Music app from launching” Simple, gives peace of mind
“This really is the simplest path to somewhat decent security”
Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “How to compromise your system with a job interview” “after I switched to LuLu I didn’t miss anything”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Stop the Apple Music app from launching” “it's been nice to have that extra peace of mind”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Maybe you shouldn't install new software for a bit”
Other firewalls people recommend
The four most recommended other firewalls, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pf (OpenBSD Packet Filter) | 53 | 7 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| nftables | 29 | 10 | 74% | 8 | — | Approved |
| LuLu firewallThis page | 27 | 3 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
| iptables | 15 | 22 | 41% | 7 | — | — |
| UFW | 12 | 15 | 44% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
28 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“All the sandbox-exec and all the Lulu rules are not going to protect against something like this.”
“the Internet access part one can control with Lulu or other similar apps”
“LuLu is honestly the best piece of software for macOS”
“This really is the simplest path to somewhat decent security”
“developers NEED to learn to use firewalls such as LuLu”
“after I switched to LuLu I didn’t miss anything”
“installed LuLu firewall and blocked every outbound to apple.com”
“it really does get the job done of stopping in-mail tracking”
“Little Snitch or LuLu for fine-grained whitelisting of network requests”
“it's been nice to have that extra peace of mind”
“Lulu has been a great option too”
“LuLu's UI could use some improvements, but otherwise it's perfectly fine for the job.”
“Really like Lulu as an alternative to LittleSnitch”
“if @op would have had Lulu or LittleSnitch installed, they would probably have noticed (and blocked) suspicious outbound connections”
“The stuff that comes from Lulu, even the cheapest "models", is honestly fine.”
“Lulu provides some evidence that you can run a profitable business and still offer users the ability to do very small print runs”
“Lulu doesn't seem to detect its network access (and can't allow you to approve it)”
“+1 Thanks, I forgot about LuLu!”
“If you want largely similar features (focused on egress), check out LuLu”
“I've found Lulu to be decent quality”
“they were fine, to my (amateur) eyes looked the same as something from a regular publisher”
“Print was unreadable, and I'm not _that_ picky.”
“I use LuLu to block outgoing connections and manually select which connections/apps are allowed. It's free and works just fine.”
“I had a good experience using Lulu for print on demand books”
“it works great. Its kept my older versions of Photoshop and Acrobat from complaining and showing me ads for newer versions”
“For an open-source alternative, consider checking out - Lulu”
“There’s an open source alternative”
“the author of LuLu is a security researcher”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.