# openrsync

17 Hacker News commenters recommended openrsync and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free, BSD-licensed rsync reimplementation from the OpenBSD team, mostly a drop-in for everyday use. Caveat: not feature-equivalent to rsync and does not match its security features.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well for everyday use (2 comments): "as of 7.8 it did not support --exclude or -z. But outside of that it works great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48335681)) "On use, there is nothing wrong with openrsync" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48339976))
- Drop-in replacement for rsync (2 comments): "it has been mostly a drop-in. Except a problem where I couldn't mix `--exclude glob` and `--delete` on the client" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48343514)) "Just use openrsync instead." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344104))
- Smaller, cleaner codebase (2 comments): "The smaller code base also means less bugs and vulnerabilities." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48421476)) "No-slop version for the sane of us" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48335413))
- Improving steadily over time (2 comments): "it's definitely improved over time. I'm looking forward to when I can use it exclusively." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48338155)) "Thank you OpenBSD for giving us, albeit surprisingly for rsync, a nice v2" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48345089))

## What people warn about

- Bugs and failing tests (4 comments): "a "bajillion Claude commits then a release" with a pile of issues within weeks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48339290)) "reports say that the base system bin in 7.9 doesn't work properly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48422204)) "I remember it breaking some scripts mysteriously" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48338301))
- Missing or broken rsync options (3 comments): "it has been mostly a drop-in. Except a problem where I couldn't mix `--exclude glob` and `--delete` on the client" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48343514)) "It's also not feature-equivalent to rsync. But if it meets your needs, it's an option." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48418227)) "as of 7.8 it did not support --exclude or -z. But outside of that it works great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48335681))
- Older protocol, interop problems (2 comments): "They don’t support any recent rsync protocol, so there’s no 64bit timestamp support, so you can never actually sync metadata across newer filesystems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48339226)) "Thing is it doesn't seem to talk very well with the samba version of rsync." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479148))
- Still a work in progress (2 comments): "it's definitely improved over time. I'm looking forward to when I can use it exclusively." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48338155)) "It appears that openrsync is still very much work in progress." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291122))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [rsync](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rsync.md): 157 recommend
- [rclone](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rclone.md): 95 recommend

## Cite as

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