# NATS JetStream 8 Hacker News commenters recommended NATS JetStream and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Recommended as a lightweight, easy-to-deploy persistence layer for NATS messaging, with high throughput and simple configuration. Critics report reliability bugs and data-storage failures. ## Why people recommend it - Easy to configure, deploy and maintain (3 comments): "NATS is far more lightweight, very simple to configure and deploy, has very few dependencies" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47987601)) "it seemed nearly as featureful but also easier to maintain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49359089)) "It is easy to manage and works great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757928)) - Fault-tolerant built-in stream persistence (2 comments): "NATS and its built-in Jetstream stream persistence engine are a miracle." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48843165)) "NATS.io provides a fault-tolarent communication bit across networks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46691420)) ## What people warn about - Reliability and data storage bugs (3 comments): "The rest are not the kind of bugs you expect to see in a 5 year old persistence layer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46201068)) "it's failing to deliver on the (advertised) basics of storing your data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46201132)) "Jetstream's reliability is horrifying apparently" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46211284)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Apache Kafka](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apache-kafka.md): 53 recommend - [NATS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nats.md): 34 recommend - [Redpanda](https://hackerapproved.com/p/redpanda.md): 17 recommend - [RabbitMQ](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rabbitmq.md): 13 recommend - [PostgreSQL LISTEN/NOTIFY](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postgresql-listen-notify.md): 13 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "NATS JetStream", https://hackerapproved.com/p/nats-jetstream/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).