# sshfs

17 Hacker News commenters recommended sshfs and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free tool that mounts remote folders over SSH so you can edit them with local apps. Critics say it is slow, often much slower than rsync.

## Why people recommend it

- Mounts remote folders over SSH (4 comments): "sshfs can mount remote dirs and then you can drag and drop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241358)) "I can use sshfs to mount a remote directory over SSH" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46718323)) "Mount a shared drive? Use sshfs?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592013))
- Works with any editor (3 comments): "In that situation I'd rather use sshfs and whatever editor I'm fancying the most for the job." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49505189)) "Use SSHFS (or other) and then just open the folder in Sublime and have at it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49793274)) "Been using that for ages, since before VSCode existed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824436))
- Reliable and fast enough (3 comments): "not because it's particularly good but because it works well enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546160)) "This setup is rock-solid reliable and very fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935779)) "sshfs solves the laggness problem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826460))

## What people warn about

- Slow compared with alternatives (4 comments): "it will be an order of magnitude slower than an rsync task" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423980)) "ultimately it's at-best pretty slow" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46083871)) "That's a less efficient protocol than 9pfs and virtiofs, even if you subtract the encryption." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485941))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [ZFS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zfs.md): 289 recommend
- [Btrfs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/btrfs.md): 105 recommend
- [FUSE](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fuse.md): 18 recommend
- [tmpfs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tmpfs.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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