# socat

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/socat/

12 people recommended socat in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 12 months, in 7 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend socat as a low-hassle command-line relay and a better alternative to base telnet for ad-hoc connections. One critic found it slow.

Summary written by Claude from 12 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Better than base telnet (2 comments in the sample): "the ones above are basically far better direct telnet alternatives" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46970023)) "Netcat or socat, both of which are far better than base Telnet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46969977))
- Good ad-hoc network client (2 comments in the sample): "netcat or socat make fine ad-hoc clients" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46970414)) "You want nc (usually with -v) or socat." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46968689))

## Other command-line tools people recommend

- [fzf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fzf/): 68 recommend, 7 mixed, 5 criticize
- [GitHub CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-cli/): 66 recommend, 10 mixed, 45 criticize
- [grep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grep/): 53 recommend, 9 mixed, 19 criticize
- [Atuin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atuin/): 51 recommend, 6 mixed, 21 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "socat", https://hackerapproved.com/p/socat/ (12 recommend, 2 mixed, 1 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.