# PGP 38 Hacker News commenters recommended PGP and 48 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 25 years (3 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for free, widely supported encryption and signing with public keys; the main caveat is that key management is hard for most people. ## Why people recommend it - Mature standard with many implementations (2 comments): "no other tooling or spec has that covered with multiple competing implementations to choose from as well as PGP" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45916327)) "New software that is compatible with any keys generated with ciphers from the last decade. Compatibility wins." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302798)) - Ties keys to real people (4 comments): "PGP actually solves the problem of which key actually belongs to which person" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48287592)) "A PGP key is the only standardized cryptographic passport for the internet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919540)) "the only IETF standard built for human-identity-bound signing with keys held by those humans" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47710573)) - Built-in verification and web of trust (3 comments): "PGP provides the tools (fingerprint verification, web of trust, key signing), but you have to actually use them." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919651)) "The PGP people were doing the right thing when they were doing education in the form of key signing parties." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49682311)) "the actually hardest problem with humans using cryptography, that PGP puts front and center" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921676)) - Decentralized, no single trusted party (3 comments): "Encrypted email is the only neutral decentralized and IETF standard comms tool we have." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48303947)) "Signal isn’t owned by the users and independent of third parties the way PGP/GPG is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50109791)) "the "least bad" option to avoid any single point of trust or failure" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45920027)) ## What people warn about - Key management too hard for most (4 comments): "PGP had the right idea, but the system is too hard for the average person." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502110)) "You still have to use PGP which means creating public/private key pairs, store them correctly, and understand when to use the public key and when to use the private key." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50118757)) "In overall PGP failed over the last 30 years, sharing public keys with other people was always the biggest difficulty for real adoption." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46285808)) - Dated, complex packet format (4 comments): "the archaisms in PGP are not merely a consequence of the GnuPG implementation, but also deeply embedded into the standard itself" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45918887)) "PGP's packet design and the state machine that falls out of it is a knock-on effect of how many things PGP tries to do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46415348)) "PGP's design has aged like milk, and PGP itself is a security liability in almost every system that hosts it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50109213)) - Easy to use insecurely (2 comments): "The blog post just reeks of "I can't use it, too complex for me therefore it sucks". Yeah, it can be misused, I do not deny that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932852)) "It's so easy to use insecurely that I will argue that employees setting up PGP keys and then potentially trying to use them does weaken the company's security posture." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919085)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [age encryption tool](https://hackerapproved.com/p/age.md): 49 recommend - [GnuPG](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnupg.md): 40 recommend - [GPG](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gpg.md): 23 recommend - [Cryptomator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cryptomator.md): 18 recommend - [Sequoia PGP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sequoia-pgp.md): 12 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "PGP", https://hackerapproved.com/p/pgp/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).