Samba
Ranked 2 of 6 self-hosted file managers by recommenders
Free, long-running file sharing server that people use for Time Machine, LAN shares and simple, low-maintenance setups. Common caveat: flaky connections with macOS and iPhone clients.
Free, long-running file sharing server that people use for Time Machine, LAN shares and simple, low-maintenance setups. Common caveat: flaky connections with macOS and iPhone clients.
57 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 36
- criticize it
- 21
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 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
Simple config with little maintenance
“It's not pretty nor great with bad connections, but there is basically no maintenance.”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “What I self-host” “samba configuration is a relatively straight forward ini style file on the server”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Bugs Rust Won't Catch” “the Samba configuration is really simple, up to 20 lines in one conf file”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Replacing an Apple Time Capsule? Skip the Ubiquiti UNAS-2” - Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “DIY NAS: 2026 Edition”
- Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS”
Time Machine backups work reliably
“Time Machine backups to a samba share on the Linux box would get you both the Photos library database and the iCloud Drive stuff.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help” “Time Machine to a network share via Samba has been pretty reliable for me”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “10Gb/s Ethernet: what I did to get it working in my home” “official easy to use support for being used with Time Machine”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Apple is dropping AFP/TimeCapsule support in macOS 27” Long-standing, well-proven open source
“Samba is one of those incredibly useful pieces of open source software that sometimes I feel I take for granted.”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Samba Was Written (2003)” “Samba was arguably the way Linux snuck into corporations in the late 90s.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Samba Was Written (2003)” “I am nothing but grateful for Samba and Rsync.”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Please Do Not Vibe Fuck Up This Software – Rsync” - Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Disable Your SSH access accidentally with scp”
- Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Stop paying for Dropbox/Google Drive, use your own S3 bucket instead”
Easy home and LAN setup
“how powerful it was for our little LAN in the dorm”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “IBM i (OS/400) the Database Operating System” “It's really not hard to setup LVM and Samba.”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “FreeCORE TrueNAS Core – Continued” “the Raspberry has a Samba fileshare”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “You will own nothing and be (un)happy” - Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring: Built together, designed for the future”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Flaky with macOS and iPhone
“I tried setting up SAMBA by itself (on Debian) for Time Machine, but for it to work it seems to want Avahi running for mDNS”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Linux 7.3” “I have been fighting annoying Samba issues with MacOS and a Linux NAS for years now”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Copyparty, the FOSS file server [video]” “manage samba (which is a huge pain in the ass to get to work properly on iPhone)”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS” - Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Linux 7.3”
Breaks or unreliable on bad connections
“All my code lives on the other end of a Samba share. Guess what doesn't work reliably.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “It's not pretty nor great with bad connections, but there is basically no maintenance.”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “What I self-host” “my Samba share totally broke and days later I still don't have it working”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Apple introduces the new iPad Air, powered by M4” Awkward to configure
“still periodically awkward to deal with”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Samba Was Written (2003)” “how come it's such a terrible experience that we need to re-invent the wheel”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users” “SMB1 was much easier to setup and use vs modern samba.”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “XBMC 4.0 for the Original Xbox” Not a drop-in for serious networks
“Samba serving SMB isn't really equivalent.”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users” “nowhere near a drop-in replacement for serious networks”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM” “it's not a "finished product", not actively maintained”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Bor – Open-source policy management for Linux desktops”
Other self-hosted file managers people recommend
The four most recommended other self-hosted file managers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| copyparty | 39 | 9 | 81% | 10 | — | Approved |
| SambaThis page | 36 | 21 | 63% | 12 | — | — |
| NFS | 20 | 18 | 53% | 9 | — | — |
| Filestash | 15 | 2 | 88% | 10 | 9 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| FileBrowser | 8 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 66 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“samba issues have been a thing as long I've been using OSX/macOS”
“I tried setting up SAMBA by itself (on Debian) for Time Machine, but for it to work it seems to want Avahi running for mDNS”
“have dropped open source Samba due to license conflicts with GPL”
“It's not pretty nor great with bad connections, but there is basically no maintenance.”
“Samba is bloody wonderful and speaks everything that MS has ever done and deprecated.”
“It's really not hard to setup LVM and Samba.”
“All my code lives on the other end of a Samba share. Guess what doesn't work reliably.”
“it's not a "finished product", not actively maintained”
“how powerful it was for our little LAN in the dorm”
“Samba will automatically register with it to advertise SMB/CIFS to macOS and Linux clients over DNS-SD.”
“manage samba (which is a huge pain in the ass to get to work properly on iPhone)”
“apt install zfs samba, and away you go.”
“I have a Samba server on a LAN”
“I am nothing but grateful for Samba and Rsync.”
“how come it's such a terrible experience that we need to re-invent the wheel”
“Samba serving SMB isn't really equivalent.”
“Time Machine to a network share via Samba has been pretty reliable for me”
“samba configuration is a relatively straight forward ini style file on the server”
“official easy to use support for being used with Time Machine”
“the Samba configuration is really simple, up to 20 lines in one conf file”
“nowhere near a drop-in replacement for serious networks”
“Old technology still works, even if it is old!”
“I personally found it easier to just run Samba on plain FreeBSD/OpenZFS”
“Even Samba is under Docker (oh my god it is so much easier to configure for common use-cases this way).”
“CIFS/Samba has had a lot of effort put into it”
“my Samba share totally broke and days later I still don't have it working”
“The best way is to set up samba on a Linux machine, even a raspberry pi, and create a domain.”
“can be tweaked to solve a variety of edge-cases that no closed system can match”
“I have always preferred a plain Unbound instance and a Samba server over fancier alternatives.”
“I have always preferred a plain Unbound instance and a Samba server over fancier alternatives”
“Samba was arguably the way Linux snuck into corporations in the late 90s.”
“Samba is one of those incredibly useful pieces of open source software that sometimes I feel I take for granted.”
“still periodically awkward to deal with”
“Time Machine backups to a samba share on the Linux box would get you both the Photos library database and the iCloud Drive stuff.”
“I also want to share the home printer/scanner, which I believe samba can do”
“Configuring samba for example is a breeze”
“I have been fighting annoying Samba issues with MacOS and a Linux NAS for years now”
“this could be as simple as a Samba server behind Wireguard”
“SMB1 was much easier to setup and use vs modern samba.”
“the Raspberry has a Samba fileshare”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.