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Proton Drive

Ranked 9 of 14 cloud storage by recommenders

Recommended as an end-to-end encrypted cloud drive from a privacy-focused company. Common caveats: slow transfer speeds and weak Linux support.

Recommended as an end-to-end encrypted cloud drive from a privacy-focused company. Common caveats: slow transfer speeds and weak Linux support.

56 people gave an opinion

recommend it
24
criticize it
32
approval share
43%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 9 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: recommended
  8. June 2026: recommended
  9. July 2026: recommended
  10. August 2026: not recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 24 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
  • Recommended in 9 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

  • End-to-end encrypted, privacy-focused company

    “they’re the only credible game in town for an email/drive service in the cloud that doesn’t have AI data mining risks”

    Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

    “Proton Drive works well and is from a company that supports privacy”

    Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users”

    “It's worse in many ways, but at least it's E2E encrypted”

    Comment from 26 May 2026 in “Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down”
  • Replaces Dropbox or other cloud storage

    “Proton Drive also made it possible to finally move away from our Dropbox Family subscription”

    Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem”

    “after a while it just made more sense to consolidate and start using Proton Drive”

    Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down”

    “Jottacloud, Koofr, Proton Drive, and more”

    Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Should we fear Microsoft's monopoly?”
  • Works well on mobile and desktop

    “Proton Drive works well and is from a company that supports privacy”

    Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users”

    “It works well enough, including auto syncing from iOS and Android.”

    Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Proton Lumo 1.3: Introducing Projects, a better way to organize and create”
  • Works with other Proton services

    “I have never seen issues with interactions between proton drive and their vpn.”

    Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

    “Proton is privacy first. I use their tools for a reason”

    Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Weak Linux and rclone support

    “Proton doesn't ship a Linux version of the drive yet”

    Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Mounting Proton Drive in Linux Like in Other OS's”

    “they don't have some core features like proper proton drive rsync support”

    Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Proton Meet Isn't What They Told You It Was”

    “Proton drive stopped working completely with rclone shortly after that”

    Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”
  • Slow development, upselling existing customers

    “They seem to acquire or put these new modules in half baked and they see little to no user end changes for years.”

    Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Born Private: Reserve your child's first email address with Proton”

    “I'm tired of waiting for a product I paid for while the company is working on new products”

    Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Migrating to the EU”

    “their priorities are trying to upsell unnecessary products to their existing customers”

    Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”
  • Account lockout and single-company risk

    “It's risky to have so much in one company, if I lose my proton access for some reasons I'm out of everything”

    Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Advice on Migrating from 1Password?”

    “i heard proton shuts down accounts just for using tempmail for verifications and refuses to help after”

    Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

    “Blocked from my files in Proton Drive. No emails. Nothing. Can't work at all.”

    Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Proton Global Outage”
  • Slow transfer speeds

    “the speeds were complete dogshit, I could barely surpass 10 MB/s on a half gig fibre line”

    Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

    “Protondrive has such dogshit speeds it's basically completely useless”

    Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem”

Other cloud storage people recommend

The four most recommended other cloud storage, 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.

Proton Drive compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Apple iCloud14423138%133 yrs7 owners—
Dropbox14016646%1212 yrs16 owners—
OneDrive8637019%128 yrs6 owners—
Google Drive6613034%125 yrs3 owners—
Proton DriveThis page243243%9——
See all 14 cloud storage, ranked

What people said

40 of the 70 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“I love Proton services and have been a subscriber for years. whenever I sync to proton drive the storage space used locally by the app is almost equal to a local photo library”

MixedComment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Linux 7.3”

“I was there once but gave up”

MixedComment from 11 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“This project is fully client side, written in a fast language and only connects to Proton servers through their SDK”

RecommendsComment from 11 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“i heard proton shuts down accounts just for using tempmail for verifications and refuses to help after”

CriticizesComment from 11 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“The browser doesn't need to be running on the same machine.”

MixedComment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“proton drive is always backing up my photos with 50-70 items to go (with no way to see which pictures/videos are backed up)”

CriticizesComment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“A very welcome news nevertheless!”

RecommendsComment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“their priorities are trying to upsell unnecessary products to their existing customers”

CriticizesComment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“the speeds were complete dogshit, I could barely surpass 10 MB/s on a half gig fibre line”

CriticizesComment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“Proton is privacy first. I use their tools for a reason”

RecommendsComment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”

“Proton doesn't ship a Linux version of the drive yet”

MixedComment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Mounting Proton Drive in Linux Like in Other OS's”

“I want any kind of active content disabled or blocked, because making these things possible leads to vulnerabilities.”

CriticizesComment from 16 Sep 2026 in “You can now play doom directly from Proton Drive”

“It's risky to have so much in one company, if I lose my proton access for some reasons I'm out of everything”

MixedComment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Advice on Migrating from 1Password?”

“Blocked from my files in Proton Drive. No emails. Nothing. Can't work at all.”

CriticizesComment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Proton Global Outage”

“Make a Proton account for drive over Tor and memorize the credentials.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Jul 2026 in “US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search”

“couldn't use it as primary option due to additional capabilities and convenience provided by Google”

MixedComment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Proton drive updates (with Linux client in progress)”

“which has its own set of warts”

MixedComment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left”

“after a while it just made more sense to consolidate and start using Proton Drive”

RecommendsComment from 27 May 2026 in “Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down”

“It's worse in many ways, but at least it's E2E encrypted”

MixedComment from 26 May 2026 in “Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down”

“Proton Drive works well and is from a company that supports privacy”

RecommendsComment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users”

“They seem to acquire or put these new modules in half baked and they see little to no user end changes for years.”

MixedComment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Born Private: Reserve your child's first email address with Proton”

“it would be nice to have a "don't ask again" option regardless, even if it's hidden in settings.”

CriticizesComment from 10 Apr 2026 in “FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages”

“if you jump through some time-limited hoops, most of which defeats the purpose of using a privacy cloud”

CriticizesComment from 10 Apr 2026 in “How Microsoft Abuses Its Users”

“stick with a secure option like Proton Drive”

RecommendsComment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Stop paying for Dropbox/Google Drive, use your own S3 bucket instead”

“they don't have some core features like proper proton drive rsync support”

CriticizesComment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Proton Meet Isn't What They Told You It Was”

“I'm tired of waiting for a product I paid for while the company is working on new products”

CriticizesComment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Migrating to the EU”

“Proton drive is fine, their docs service is usable but could use improvement.”

RecommendsComment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native”

“Proton Drive also made it possible to finally move away from our Dropbox Family subscription”

RecommendsComment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem”

“Protondrive has such dogshit speeds it's basically completely useless”

CriticizesComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem”

“moved our data to Proton Drive”

RecommendsComment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Escaping the trap of US tech dependence”

“It works well enough, including auto syncing from iOS and Android.”

MixedComment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Proton Lumo 1.3: Introducing Projects, a better way to organize and create”

“Drive is nice, although I switched to Immich”

MixedComment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Proton Lumo 1.3: Introducing Projects, a better way to organize and create”

“Drive sucks. No previewing files, viewing photos etc. due to missing docs suite”

CriticizesComment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500€/Year)”

“Jottacloud, Koofr, Proton Drive, and more”

RecommendsComment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Should we fear Microsoft's monopoly?”

“their poor linux support across all their products makes it difficult”

CriticizesComment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

“Proton drive stopped working completely with rclone shortly after that”

CriticizesComment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

“I don't think that's a recommendation an experienced Arch user would ever make”

CriticizesComment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

“you don’t need to pay a premium for end to end encryption like with proton”

CriticizesComment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

“they’re the only credible game in town for an email/drive service in the cloud that doesn’t have AI data mining risks”

RecommendsComment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

“I have never seen issues with interactions between proton drive and their vpn.”

RecommendsComment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Mount Proton Drive on Linux using rclone and systemd”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.