# sudo 34 Hacker News commenters recommended sudo and 41 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People recommend it as battle-tested infrastructure that lets you start with few privileges and elevate when needed. Critics most often cite its history of security vulnerabilities. ## Why people recommend it - Praised as smooth, awesome software (3 comments): "I love the hell out of the program; it's an essential part of how I get shit done on my PC." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436085)) "It's so smooth I don't even consider it software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46858898)) "Sudo is an awesome piece of work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46865477)) - Battle-tested, long-trusted Unix tool (2 comments): "basic Unix tools like sudo, etc, that are battle tested since ages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046358)) "stuff that's already battle hardened" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45908768)) - Critical infrastructure on Linux and Unix (2 comments): "one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure on nearly every Linux and Unix system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859228)) "his code runs in basically every big script on the planet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866872)) - Safer than running everything as root (2 comments): "It's simply better to start with little privileges and then elevate when needed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46250975)) "sudo is safer, the alternative is running everything as root" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49936791)) ## What people warn about - Long history of security vulnerabilities (4 comments): "The ability to whitelist specific args for commands has been the source of several (countless?) sudo CVEs over the years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47844484)) "Despite being patched, the presence of prior vulnerabilities [1] and hacks makes it fundamentally not trustworthy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47842504)) "The "perfectly functional one" from 1980 also has multiple critical vulnerabilities in it in recent years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45943364)) - Overcomplicated with too many features (3 comments): "Sudo is overcomplicated and since this is a drop-in replacement, it inherits all the complexities." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902427)) "sudo had grown a lot of features and a complicated config syntax over the years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047575)) "the scope of the tool should be smaller and it violates the Unix philosophy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46860082)) - Can be bypassed by malware or agents (3 comments): "There's no way to ensure that nobody overwrote your .profile or .bashrc with a backdoored sudo that steals your password" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48351821)) "using sudo to whitelist a prefix allows an agent to create a .deb themselves and then install it directly via apt" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564997)) "malware can mask the sudo command and intercept the password so trivially" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500913)) - Silent password and slow failures (2 comments): "if my system's DNS is broken, I get to wait 60 seconds for sudo to work, during which time I can't even ctrl+c to cancel" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46869644)) "sudo is the only case of a silent password I've encountered in my life and it's really uncomfortable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469544)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [sudo-rs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sudo-rs.md): 17 recommend - [doas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/doas.md): 8 recommend - [run0 (systemd)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/run0.md): 8 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "sudo", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sudo/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).