# Proton Lumo 14 Hacker News commenters recommended Proton Lumo and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.08 years (3 owners). **Verdict:** People recommend Lumo for its privacy stance, free tier, and built-in web search that handles everyday questions well. The main caveat is that it trails leading models. ## Why people recommend it - Strong privacy stance and no-logging (5 comments): "Lumo by Proton is pretty performant. Mostly, it has an epic free tier and I dig their stance on privacy-first AI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47229307)) "use of a strong Mistral model and web search is 100% private" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47023965)) "Proton Lumo has more clear policies of no-logging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938430)) - Built-in web search works well (4 comments): "I pay $13/month for Proton’s Lumo+ private chat LLM that contains an excellent built-in web search tool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626601)) "ProtonMail's Lumo+ product for all private daily web search and chatbot functionality is enough for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47516793)) "Something like Lumo is very much good enough to replace search" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47921084)) - Good for everyday questions (4 comments): "ProtonMail's Lumo+ product for all private daily web search and chatbot functionality is enough for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47516793)) "Lumo works fine for the simple quality of life search and question answering stuff." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46744180)) "I like Lumo a lot. It almost never ends with a follow up question." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47244499)) - Free tier and fair price (2 comments): "Lumo by Proton is pretty performant. Mostly, it has an epic free tier and I dig their stance on privacy-first AI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47229307)) "Adequate, good features, not too expensive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122109)) ## What people warn about - Open-source claims only cover frontend (3 comments): "they really don't do themselves any favours by claiming it's all open-source when only the frontend is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48731182)) "Wish they'd be a bit more open source about this, bet people would contribute more." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48731614)) "only their clients are open. The models themselves?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48731051)) - Unclear privacy promises and email opt-out (4 comments): "Lumo never promises encryption while processing a conversation on their servers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45924546)) "But seems like they stripped this info from their Privacy Policy now?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48731963)) "how can I have been any more explicit about opting out of Lumo emails" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730307)) - Trails current leading models (3 comments): "breaks after every fifth message or so and is substantially behind SOTA offerings" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49527312)) "it feels a few iterations behind the current models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48732271)) "Lumo and other suites feel subpar and inferior." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50326467)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Claude](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude.md): 5175 recommend - [Google Gemini](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gemini.md): 2195 recommend - [ChatGPT](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chatgpt.md): 2186 recommend - [Grok](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok.md): 727 recommend - [Microsoft Copilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-copilot.md): 139 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://lumo.proton.me/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Proton Lumo", https://hackerapproved.com/p/lumo/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).