Hacker ApprovedDepartments

rustls

Hacker Approved

Ranked 3 of 5 TLS libraries by recommenders

Memory-safe TLS library written in Rust, recommended as a modern alternative to OpenSSL and C TLS stacks. One critic notes it still outsources cryptographic primitives.

Memory-safe TLS library written in Rust, recommended as a modern alternative to OpenSSL and C TLS stacks. One critic notes it still outsources cryptographic primitives.

14 people gave an opinion

recommend it
13
criticize it
1
approval share
93%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 6 of 13 months

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

Why it carries the badge

  • 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 13 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 6 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

  • Memory safety over C code

    “C memory safety vulnerabilities arise from trying to handle these dynamic things which rustls fixes.”

    Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”

    “great primatives in Rust like rustls (modern openSSL) and Tokio (async)”

    Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “What it feels like to work with Mythos”

    “rustls (modern memory safe OpenSSL)”

    Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Grit: Rewriting Git in Rust with Agents”
  • Adopted by a growing number of projects

    “Some grants by STF, like Mastodon, Openstreetmaps, Let's Encrypt, rustls are spot on”

    Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Sovereign Tech Agency invests €500k in Flatpak”

    “I go and toggle the reqwest switch to use rustls every time”

    Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Axios Compromised on NPM – Malicious Versions Drop Remote Access Trojan”

    “A number of projects are shifting to it”

    Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “AI found 12 vulnerabilities in OpenSSL”
  • Praised as very advanced and good

    “There is of course RustTLS that already exists and is already very advanced.”

    Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Rust Coreutils 0.5.0 Release: 87.75% compatibility with GNU Coreutils”

    “It has TLS in the name, it is good and there is a C FFI wrapper.”

    Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”

    “I've never been happier with the overall library.”

    Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”
  • Seen as a great Rust primitive

    “The Rust community has built some great primatives like rustls and tokio”

    Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Valdr - Valkey/Redis in safe Rust, passes >99% of Valkey test suite”

    “great primatives in Rust like rustls (modern openSSL) and Tokio (async)”

    Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “What it feels like to work with Mythos”

Other TLS libraries people recommend

The four most recommended other TLS libraries, 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.

rustls compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
OpenSSL489833%10——
wolfSSL14767%6—Approved
rustlsThis page13193%6—Approved
LibreSSL11285%7—Approved
BearSSL60100%3——
See all 5 TLS libraries, ranked

What people said

13 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“Some grants by STF, like Mastodon, Openstreetmaps, Let's Encrypt, rustls are spot on”

RecommendsComment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Sovereign Tech Agency invests €500k in Flatpak”

“rustls (modern memory safe OpenSSL)”

RecommendsComment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Grit: Rewriting Git in Rust with Agents”

“great primatives in Rust like rustls (modern openSSL) and Tokio (async)”

RecommendsComment from 9 Jun 2026 in “What it feels like to work with Mythos”

“The Rust community has built some great primatives like rustls and tokio”

RecommendsComment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Valdr - Valkey/Redis in safe Rust, passes >99% of Valkey test suite”

“I go and toggle the reqwest switch to use rustls every time”

RecommendsComment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Axios Compromised on NPM – Malicious Versions Drop Remote Access Trojan”

“there's RustTLS, GnuTLS, BoringSSL, LibreSSL, WolfSSL, NSS, and AWS-LC that come to mind immediately”

MixedComment from 23 Mar 2026 in “GitHub appears to be struggling with measly three nines availability”

“C memory safety vulnerabilities arise from trying to handle these dynamic things which rustls fixes.”

RecommendsComment from 14 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”

“I've never been happier with the overall library.”

RecommendsComment from 14 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”

“Rustls still outsources cryptographic primitives.”

CriticizesComment from 13 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”

“It has TLS in the name, it is good and there is a C FFI wrapper.”

RecommendsComment from 13 Feb 2026 in “WolfSSL Sucks Too, So Now What?”

“A number of projects are shifting to it”

RecommendsComment from 28 Jan 2026 in “AI found 12 vulnerabilities in OpenSSL”

“There is of course RustTLS that already exists and is already very advanced.”

RecommendsComment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Rust Coreutils 0.5.0 Release: 87.75% compatibility with GNU Coreutils”

“I replaced it with rust tls to remove the dynamic linked library.”

RecommendsComment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Go is portable, until it isn't”

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