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%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- 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” - Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Proton Drive for Linux”
- Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Stop paying for Dropbox/Google Drive, use your own S3 bucket instead”
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?” - Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Escaping the trap of US tech dependence”
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” - 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple iCloud | 144 | 231 | 38% | 13 | 3 yrs7 owners | — |
| Dropbox | 140 | 166 | 46% | 12 | 12 yrs16 owners | — |
| OneDrive | 86 | 370 | 19% | 12 | 8 yrs6 owners | — |
| Google Drive | 66 | 130 | 34% | 12 | 5 yrs3 owners | — |
| Proton DriveThis page | 24 | 32 | 43% | 9 | — | — |
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”
“I was there once but gave up”
“This project is fully client side, written in a fast language and only connects to Proton servers through their SDK”
“i heard proton shuts down accounts just for using tempmail for verifications and refuses to help after”
“The browser doesn't need to be running on the same machine.”
“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)”
“A very welcome news nevertheless!”
“their priorities are trying to upsell unnecessary products to their existing customers”
“the speeds were complete dogshit, I could barely surpass 10 MB/s on a half gig fibre line”
“Proton is privacy first. I use their tools for a reason”
“Proton doesn't ship a Linux version of the drive yet”
“I want any kind of active content disabled or blocked, because making these things possible leads to vulnerabilities.”
“It's risky to have so much in one company, if I lose my proton access for some reasons I'm out of everything”
“Blocked from my files in Proton Drive. No emails. Nothing. Can't work at all.”
“Make a Proton account for drive over Tor and memorize the credentials.”
“couldn't use it as primary option due to additional capabilities and convenience provided by Google”
“which has its own set of warts”
“after a while it just made more sense to consolidate and start using Proton Drive”
“It's worse in many ways, but at least it's E2E encrypted”
“Proton Drive works well and is from a company that supports privacy”
“They seem to acquire or put these new modules in half baked and they see little to no user end changes for years.”
“it would be nice to have a "don't ask again" option regardless, even if it's hidden in settings.”
“if you jump through some time-limited hoops, most of which defeats the purpose of using a privacy cloud”
“stick with a secure option like Proton Drive”
“they don't have some core features like proper proton drive rsync support”
“I'm tired of waiting for a product I paid for while the company is working on new products”
“Proton drive is fine, their docs service is usable but could use improvement.”
“Proton Drive also made it possible to finally move away from our Dropbox Family subscription”
“Protondrive has such dogshit speeds it's basically completely useless”
“moved our data to Proton Drive”
“It works well enough, including auto syncing from iOS and Android.”
“Drive is nice, although I switched to Immich”
“Drive sucks. No previewing files, viewing photos etc. due to missing docs suite”
“Jottacloud, Koofr, Proton Drive, and more”
“their poor linux support across all their products makes it difficult”
“Proton drive stopped working completely with rclone shortly after that”
“I don't think that's a recommendation an experienced Arch user would ever make”
“you don’t need to pay a premium for end to end encryption like with proton”
“they’re the only credible game in town for an email/drive service in the cloud that doesn’t have AI data mining risks”
“I have never seen issues with interactions between proton drive and their vpn.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.