# SETI@home

16 Hacker News commenters recommended SETI@home and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as an early distributed computing project that let home computers search for signals, and as a fun screensaver to run. One critic says its main benefit was the idea rather than its results.

## Why people recommend it

- Early distributed computing pioneer (2 comments): "Seti@home was one of, if not the first distributed projects, the predecessor of cloud computing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46705858)) "This is basically what seti and the computing @home projects did." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50074241))
- Cool, easy-to-install screensaver (4 comments): "the screensaver was trivial to install and neat to look at" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46705773)) "seti@home was definetly a cool screensaver, though." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46643059)) "That screensaver was a total vibe" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46707755))
- Fun sense of contributing (4 comments): "It felt really cool as a 12 year old to be contributing to the project in some small way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46704707)) "Loved it - felt like I was a part of something bigger than me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50120229)) "It was fun to walk though there and think we were "helping"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709222))
- Fun to run at home (2 comments): "It was really interesting watching it do FFT back in the day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46705123)) "was fun to run on your computer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47131270))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Folding@home](https://hackerapproved.com/p/folding-home.md): 15 recommend
- [BOINC](https://hackerapproved.com/p/boinc.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "SETI@home", https://hackerapproved.com/p/seti-home/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).