Old Reddit
Ranked 4 of 17 discussion forums by recommenders
People recommend old.reddit for its fast, readable comment tree and plain layout. Main caveat: it now requires a login and may be phased out.
People recommend old.reddit for its fast, readable comment tree and plain layout. Main caveat: it now requires a login and may be phased out.
107 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 60
- criticize it
- 47
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 60 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 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
Faster and more efficient
“Using old.reddit.com was much more efficient to me than the default UI here.”
Comment from 19 Dec 2025 in “Hacker News front page now, but the titles are honest” “it is much faster to browse between pages using old reddit”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe” “super performant too, loads in a fraction of the time”
Comment from 30 May 2026 on Hacker News Shows full comment threads at once
“This link however works fine and returns the all the subthread comments I was missing”
Comment from 31 May 2026 on Hacker News “old reddit shows more or less the raw comment tree, sorted, like HN”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe” “seeing complete threads without clicking vs clicking many times”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe” Readable, simple, uncluttered design
“old.reddit.com has been the last bastion of a design intended for power users”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Reddit is putting more limits on old.reddit.com” “The old Reddit interface (or current HN one!) are unsurpassed IMHO.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Discord Alternatives, Ranked” “old.reddit.com is pretty well-designed for readability”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Reddit is going to force you to log in to use old Reddit” Works with browser extensions and userscripts
“Old.reddit, the Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES), custom userstyle CSS and uBlock make Reddit tolerable.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe” “I have an auto-redirect userscript set up in Firefox so I never see reddit.com.”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “The best is over: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet” “I now use a browser extension to redirect all reddit links to old”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Now requires login to use
“reddit recently killed off old.reddit; you now have to log in, which defeats the point of old.reddit.com totally.”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $13B” “Old Reddit requiring login feels like the beginning of the ‘please use our app’ boss battle.”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Tell HN: Old.reddit.com Requires Login” “Actually old reddit doesn’t work that way anymore lol you must login or use crappy reddit”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link” - Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results”
- Comment from 5 Sep 2026 in “Nitter has more working instances than before the takedowns”
- Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Nothing works and everyone is euphoric”
Expected to be phased out
“I would be surprised if old.reddit.com is still functional in a couple of years.”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph” “I was afraid old.reddit.com was next on the chopping block”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “Old Reddit Is Down” “It seems we both agree, though, that Old Reddit is not long for this world. Which I find regrettable.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe” Poor on mobile phones
“Fully functional on desktop, agree, but far cry from fully functional on my arguably tiny iPhone”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “A new spam policy for "back button hijacking"” “old.reddit.com now requires login. Which renders a blank page on my phone.”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Nothing works and everyone is euphoric” Breaks back button and redirects
“it breaks the back button. When you navigate back, it usually reloads the entire page you were on”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “A new spam policy for "back button hijacking"” “neither the automatic redirect, nor the 'click this link' page redirects properly if it all”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Reddit is putting more limits on old.reddit.com”
Other discussion forums people recommend
The four most recommended other discussion forums, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hacker News | 361 | 156 | 70% | 12 | 10 yrs17 owners | Approved |
| 261 | 988 | 21% | 13 | 14 yrs54 owners | — | |
| Lobsters | 105 | 31 | 77% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Old RedditThis page | 60 | 47 | 56% | 12 | — | — |
| Slashdot | 32 | 18 | 64% | 12 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 120 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Try using https://github.com/mkornreich/old_reddit to make it look like old Reddit”
“neither the automatic redirect, nor the 'click this link' page redirects properly if it all”
“old.reddit.com has been the last bastion of a design intended for power users”
“Huge kudos to these people, but isn't it time to just let the bad businesses die?”
“since old.reddit (EDIT: on mobile) is closed for visitors without an account”
“Actually old reddit doesn’t work that way anymore lol you must login or use crappy reddit”
“Works ok for browsing links, it’s not as nice as “old” but it’s okay”
“Try using https://github.com/mkornreich/old_reddit to browse Reddit with the old reddit layout while logged out”
“nice old.reddit.com, but I don’t think people want something as far back as 2015”
“reddit recently killed off old.reddit; you now have to log in, which defeats the point of old.reddit.com totally.”
“This might be useful for active Reddit users once they sunset Old Reddit for good, but this doesn't solve the issue of lurkers”
“Not working for me either without an account anymore. Seems like a very recent change.”
“Old Reddit requiring login feels like the beginning of the ‘please use our app’ boss battle.”
“Old reddit is the only "discussion forum" experience you could get on web.”
“old.reddit.com now requires login. Which renders a blank page on my phone.”
“seeing complete threads without clicking vs clicking many times”
“I'm reminded to use old.reddit every time I open a Google result and can't quickly skim or search the comments.”
“credit to whoever fought internally to keep old.reddit running all these years”
“old reddit shows more or less the raw comment tree, sorted, like HN”
“it is much faster to browse between pages using old reddit”
“It seems we both agree, though, that Old Reddit is not long for this world. Which I find regrettable.”
“Old.reddit, the Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES), custom userstyle CSS and uBlock make Reddit tolerable.”
“I now use a browser extension to redirect all reddit links to old”
“I would be surprised if old.reddit.com is still functional in a couple of years.”
“I personally find old reddit on mobile more usable than both new and the app version.”
“old.reddit.com is pretty well-designed for readability”
“it's actually an un-enshittified version of the product, which is basically unheard of”
“This link however works fine and returns the all the subthread comments I was missing”
“super performant too, loads in a fraction of the time”
“I have an auto-redirect userscript set up in Firefox so I never see reddit.com.”
“it breaks the back button. When you navigate back, it usually reloads the entire page you were on”
“I exclusively view Reddit via the old.reddit.com URL in desktop mode”
“Fully functional on desktop, agree, but far cry from fully functional on my arguably tiny iPhone”
“It's perfectly fine and usable for me. More so than the app or the 'new' Reddit design.”
“This works well enough that I haven't downloaded the reddit mobile app or used their mobile site ever since they killed Apollo.”
“old Reddit you have to press next which I find doesn't keep me as addicted”
“I find old.reddit nearly perfect, though the way they crammed in multi-image support is a pain point for me.”
“The old Reddit interface (or current HN one!) are unsurpassed IMHO.”
“Using old.reddit.com was much more efficient to me than the default UI here.”
“I was afraid old.reddit.com was next on the chopping block”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.