# Once

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Once and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free tool for caching CLI commands that keeps secrets out of files and the environment. Critics question what its use case is.

## Why people recommend it

- Users thank the maker and find it useful (2 comments): "This looks awesome. Thanks for making this." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50022231)) "I'm glad you're finding it useful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50047492))

## What people warn about

- Unclear use case (2 comments): "Seems well-designed, but what’s the use case?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019120)) "Uh I dont know about that one chief." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020394))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [fzf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fzf.md): 78 recommend
- [jq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jq.md): 75 recommend
- [grep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grep.md): 65 recommend
- [Atuin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atuin.md): 63 recommend
- [GitHub CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-cli.md): 49 recommend

## Cite as

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