Sidebery
Hacker ApprovedRanked 15 of 70 browser extensions by recommenders
Firefox extension that shows tabs as a vertical, nested tree with flexible customization and handles thousands of tabs well. Critics say being an extension causes occasional glitches.
Firefox extension that shows tabs as a vertical, nested tree with flexible customization and handles thousands of tabs well. Critics say being an extension causes occasional glitches.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 27
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not 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 carries the badge
- 27 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Vertical tree-style tab display
“I am still having to use an extension (Sidebery) because Firefox failed to implement vertical tabs half as good”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “The new Firefox design is here” “The king of all tree-style tab browsers and the #1 reason I won't move away from Firefox.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Edge, Opera to follow” “Sidebery can do the 80% of TST that matters, with a better UI and UX and saner defaults.”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser” - Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Brave overhauled its Rust adblock engine with FlatBuffers, cutting memory 75%”
- Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript”
- Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “We finally learned to center a div, then browsers added sidebars”
- Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo”
Handles thousands of tabs
“It gives me most of the features important to me, but better updates and importantly performance”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “So Long, Firefox, Part One” “Firefox + Sidebery don't even break a sweat with 20K tabs”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “A tab hoarder's journey to sanity” “easily handles 3000 tabs across a couple of windows”
Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: OnePad: Stop losing your work in a sea of browser tabs” - Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “A tab hoarder's journey to sanity”
Better than Firefox native tabs
“I am still having to use an extension (Sidebery) because Firefox failed to implement vertical tabs half as good”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “The new Firefox design is here” “Sidebery can do the 80% of TST that matters, with a better UI and UX and saner defaults.”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser” “In inferior execution, Sideberry is still miles ahead compared to the "native" option”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Mozilla is building an AI 'rebel alliance' to take on OpenAI, Anthropic” - Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla”
Flexible customization and rules
“The way sidebery let's you customize it's right click menu seems to be the right way to go about it”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Making Firefox's right-click not suck with about:config” “deliver the same functionality I found elsewhere, without taking control from me”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Hang on to Your Firefox” “I use sidebery to set up rules so I can get the best of both”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Firefox Containers Preview” - Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “The new Firefox design is here”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Feels bolted on, occasionally glitchy
“they suffer from being extensions and not part of the browser proper, which makes for occasional weird interactions and glitches”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser” “found them all too flaky and tacked-on-feeling for my taste”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “A tab hoarder's journey to sanity” “"bolted on" feeling always bothered me”
Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser”
Other browser extensions people recommend
The four most recommended other browser extensions, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SponsorBlock | 137 | 4 | 97% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Firefox Multi-Account Containers | 76 | 13 | 85% | 10 | 7.5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| NoScript | 61 | 11 | 85% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Claude in Chrome | 53 | 42 | 56% | 9 | — | — |
| SideberyThis page | 27 | 3 | 90% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
31 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they suffer from being extensions and not part of the browser proper, which makes for occasional weird interactions and glitches”
“it's pretty rare for it to break”
“Sidebery can do the 80% of TST that matters, with a better UI and UX and saner defaults.”
“"bolted on" feeling always bothered me”
“Since Sidebery already built it, it would be reasonably easy for mozilla to implement”
“Sideberry is GOAT, nothing can beat its flexibility.”
“I am still having to use an extension (Sidebery) because Firefox failed to implement vertical tabs half as good”
“deliver the same functionality I found elsewhere, without taking control from me”
“to have an explorer-like tree view of my browsing session”
“makes it really easy to organize your tabs”
“I wouldn't want to replace my Sidebery vertical tabs with this setup”
“Sidebery's panels (if you don't mind vertical tabs)”
“I use sidebery to set up rules so I can get the best of both”
“I'd been using this through Sidebery for so long”
“The king of all tree-style tab browsers and the #1 reason I won't move away from Firefox.”
“easily handles 3000 tabs across a couple of windows”
“Tabs are vertical, hierarchical, and searchable.”
“The way sidebery let's you customize it's right click menu seems to be the right way to go about it”
“In inferior execution, Sideberry is still miles ahead compared to the "native" option”
“~5k tabs and it worked perfectly”
“Firefox + Sidebery don't even break a sweat with 20K tabs”
“found them all too flaky and tacked-on-feeling for my taste”
“FF with sidebury, containers, and suspender extensions”
“has been a solid implementation of vertical tabs since a long time ago”
“For me, it was Sidebery, too.”
“I used Sidebery which had niggles”
“I'm just using Firefox ATM because of Sidebery.”
“seems to slow things down quite a lot”
“It gives me most of the features important to me, but better updates and importantly performance”
“The game changer is Sideberry. It makes manually managed container tabs almost effortless.”
“That combined with sideberry makes Firefox the superior one”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.