Proton Lumo
Shares rank 14 of 26 AI assistants by recommenders
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.
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.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 month
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not 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
Strong privacy stance and no-logging
“Lumo by Proton is pretty performant. Mostly, it has an epic free tier and I dig their stance on privacy-first AI.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Online LLM / Chat do you use?” “use of a strong Mistral model and web search is 100% private”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Amazon, Google Unwittingly Reveal the Severity of the U.S. Surveillance State” “Proton Lumo has more clear policies of no-logging”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Is ChatGPT and OpenAI Stealing Ideas?” - Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “OpenAI Executes Agreement with Dept of War for Classified Environment Deployment”
- Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Can I opt out of my input or output data being used for training?”
Built-in web search works well
“I pay $13/month for Proton’s Lumo+ private chat LLM that contains an excellent built-in web search tool.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac” “ProtonMail's Lumo+ product for all private daily web search and chatbot functionality is enough for me”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform” “Something like Lumo is very much good enough to replace search”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “France's Mistral Built a $14B AI Empire by Not Being American” - Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “How Will OpenAI Compete?”
Good for everyday questions
“ProtonMail's Lumo+ product for all private daily web search and chatbot functionality is enough for me”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform” “Lumo works fine for the simple quality of life search and question answering stuff.”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem” “I like Lumo a lot. It almost never ends with a follow up question.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Giving LLMs a personality is just good engineering” - Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “France's Mistral Built a $14B AI Empire by Not Being American”
Free tier and fair price
“Lumo by Proton is pretty performant. Mostly, it has an epic free tier and I dig their stance on privacy-first AI.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Online LLM / Chat do you use?” “Adequate, good features, not too expensive.”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “I Moved My Digital Stack to Europe”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Open-source claims only cover frontend
“they really don't do themselves any favours by claiming it's all open-source when only the frontend is”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Lumo 2.0” “Wish they'd be a bit more open source about this, bet people would contribute more.”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Lumo 2.0” “only their clients are open. The models themselves?”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Lumo 2.0” Unclear privacy promises and email opt-out
“Lumo never promises encryption while processing a conversation on their servers.”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy” “But seems like they stripped this info from their Privacy Policy now?”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Lumo 2.0” “how can I have been any more explicit about opting out of Lumo emails”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem” - Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem”
Trails current leading models
“breaks after every fifth message or so and is substantially behind SOTA offerings”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Proton Outage” “it feels a few iterations behind the current models”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Lumo 2.0” “Lumo and other suites feel subpar and inferior.”
Comment from 1 Nov 2026 in “Manifestos, Fear, and 'Loser Thinking': Inside Proton's AI Reckoning”
Other AI assistants people recommend
The four most recommended other AI assistants, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | 5,175 | 5,005 | 51% | 13 | 6 mo326 owners | — |
| Google Gemini | 2,195 | 2,236 | 50% | 13 | 6 mo98 owners | — |
| ChatGPT | 2,186 | 2,885 | 43% | 13 | 1 yr164 owners | — |
| Grok | 727 | 1,249 | 37% | 13 | 1 mo19 owners | — |
| Proton LumoThis page | 14 | 12 | 54% | 9 | 1 mo3 owners | — |
What people said
37 of the 43 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Lumo and other suites feel subpar and inferior.”
“Lumo seems the most reputable.”
“It is E2EE and has projects.”
“breaks after every fifth message or so and is substantially behind SOTA offerings”
“the upgrade from older to newer versions of lumo were definitely noticeable”
“These safeguard guardrails are apparently only good at stopping poop pics.”
“it feels a few iterations behind the current models”
“But seems like they stripped this info from their Privacy Policy now?”
“a private LLM with good conversation management”
“Wish they'd be a bit more open source about this, bet people would contribute more.”
“they really don't do themselves any favours by claiming it's all open-source when only the frontend is”
“only their clients are open. The models themselves?”
“for what it is it is also good”
“Adequate, good features, not too expensive.”
“Something like Lumo is very much good enough to replace search”
“I pay $13/month for Proton’s Lumo+ private chat LLM that contains an excellent built-in web search tool.”
“ProtonMail's Lumo+ product for all private daily web search and chatbot functionality is enough for me”
“I've switched to lumo if I need an ai so that's fine by me.”
“I like Lumo a lot. It almost never ends with a follow up question.”
“Lumo by Proton is pretty performant. Mostly, it has an epic free tier and I dig their stance on privacy-first AI.”
“Proton Lumo has the better privacy promises.”
“it has excellent integrated search”
“chat history is stored with my Proton data and is available in all my devices”
“There are some services like proton lumo, the service by signal, kagi's AI which seem to try to be better”
“their handy lumo+ private chat service built on Mistral models”
“I like just having one tool to use”
“use of a strong Mistral model and web search is 100% private”
“Lumo works fine for the simple quality of life search and question answering stuff.”
“if you only use it a few times a week, it’s not worth the money”
“The 'not technically a Lumo email' dodge is the real story here.”
“how can I have been any more explicit about opting out of Lumo emails”
“Lumo AI will be limited, not remembering conversations”
“Lumo will likely be the thing that moves me away from Proton”
“I am personally liking the proton lumo models”
“I think proton's Lumo is another good bet.”
“Proton Lumo has more clear policies of no-logging”
“Lumo never promises encryption while processing a conversation on their servers.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.