# Radicle 95 Hacker News commenters recommended Radicle and 41 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.5 years (4 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A peer-to-peer Git forge that stores issues and patches in the repo and keeps working offline or when hosts go down, though a private-repository security flaw drew sharp criticism. ## Why people recommend it - Truly decentralized, peer-to-peer hosting (8 comments): "Every time I read about an emulation or file sharing project kicked off of GitHub, I think: should have used Radicle." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46733314)) "Instead of creating one more centralized alternative, it's best to invest all effort into a decentralized solution" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49348841)) "These p2p solutions are more like bittorrent where you can clone as long as someone is seeding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019222)) - Keeps working when hosts go down (5 comments): "With Radicle you can continue to work locally with all issues etc intact, even if your main host is down." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333461)) "the main benefit is that everything continues working even though HardenedBSDs official seed is down" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47946997)) "provides self-hosting with decentralized mirrors for both added availability and DDoS resistance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49016195)) - Issues and patches stored in Git (4 comments): "where they manage issues/prs/user identities as git objects, so your entire project is self contained as git repository" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135808)) "This looks like a much more sensible design for code repos: all the artifacts live in the repo." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959753)) "which can be used to develop git-based projects (including issues etc) in a distributed manner" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449657)) - Local-first, works offline (2 comments): "With Radicle you can continue to work locally with all issues etc intact, even if your main host is down." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333461)) "Radicle is local-first, so you can create issues and patches (pull requests) even when offline." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47947059)) ## What people warn about - Private repository security vulnerability (5 comments): "announcement 3 months later is not super great, considering that the current advice is "Stop using private repositories (over the network) until the security update is released."" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49818384)) ""Your Data, Forever and Secure" in big bold letters on their homepage with total disregard for the truth of that statement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49822899)) "There's no structural separation of public / private repositories; this is one bug or fat-finger away from a leak." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48155532)) - Amateurish security practices (5 comments): "you should stop and look for someone who does to check your system in the real world before you tell people to depend on it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49823807)) "they were depending on libraries (both by Cyphernet, interestingly) and implicitly trusting them, instead of verifying." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49820076)) "If a core feature of your software requires security guarantees you can't just say they don't have a "security team"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49821130)) - Weak search and social discovery (2 comments): "Its pretty much exactly what is being asked for here. The main issue I see is its impossible to search through peoples projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47971143)) "The social / coordination control-plane angle is really thin, following users and repos goes by opaque IDs, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959891)) - Crypto-adjacent origins (2 comments): "Radicle seems better in that regards, but instead is on top of their own cryptocurrency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49845402)) "the fact that this started as Crypto-adjacent should have immediately disqualified them for serious use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49820670)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [GitHub](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github.md): 764 recommend - [Forgejo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/forgejo.md): 380 recommend - [GitLab](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gitlab.md): 331 recommend - [Codeberg](https://hackerapproved.com/p/codeberg.md): 331 recommend - [Gitea](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gitea.md): 195 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Radicle", https://hackerapproved.com/p/radicle/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).