# ss

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

5 people recommended ss in Hacker News comments and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 12 months, in 4 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Built-in Linux tool for listing sockets and ports, with filters that replace grep. Caveat: default output is hard to read and parse.

Summary written by Claude from 13 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 10 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- More reliable, and liked once learned (2 comments in the sample): "ss is  a bit different and is a bit more reliable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364057)) "I've gotten used to ss now, and I quite like it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366943))
- Useful for troubleshooting network services (1 comment in the sample): "some of the most often misunderstood or unknown tools that I find useful for troubleshooting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49920837))

## What people warn about

- Default output hard for humans (2 comments in the sample): "Like, ss without any options shows such arcane, rarely needed details as send/receive queue size but not the application socket belongs to." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381887)) "it's not good for humans, it's not great for scripts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46363759))
- Text output brittle for scripts (1 comment in the sample): "parsing text intended for human readability and not machine processing is brittle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46089775))
- Confusing flags and defaults (1 comment in the sample): "they managed to pick all the wrong defaults" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46363327))

## 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, "ss", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ss/ (5 recommend, 0 mixed, 4 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

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