# Maestral

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Maestral and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free, open source Dropbox-compatible client for Linux and macOS that people find reliable and use on low-end machines. Caveat: block-level sync is lost and the project appears unmaintained.

## Why people recommend it

- Works reliably on Linux (2 comments): "have been using it for about a year on my Linux install and it works seamlessly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46463848)) "Works like a charm for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46458765))
- Open source cross-platform Dropbox client (2 comments): "a cross platform implementation of the Dropbox client API which I use on low end Linux machines" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46486451)) "I use the open source client https://maestral.app/ on the Mac for workstation use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47675353))

## What people warn about

- Block-level sync lost; appears unmaintained (2 comments): "Using Maestral as a client made things better (at the loss of block-level sync + now unmaintained)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49774003)) "it appears to have been archived and no longer maintained" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836476))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Syncthing](https://hackerapproved.com/p/syncthing.md): 212 recommend
- [Nextcloud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nextcloud.md): 154 recommend
- [OpenCloud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/opencloud.md): 18 recommend
- [Seafile](https://hackerapproved.com/p/seafile.md): 18 recommend
- [ownCloud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/owncloud.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

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