# Tinfoil 21 Hacker News commenters recommended Tinfoil and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People recommend Tinfoil for verifiably private AI inference in secure enclaves, with open-source code and attestation. Critics note it has not been independently audited. ## Why people recommend it - Verifiable privacy via secure enclaves (9 comments): "Tinfoil OTOH claims hardware attestation and confidential computing, which is a pretty strong and (in theory) verifiable promise." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49354217)) "What you really want (assuming you can't afford your own servers and datacentre space) is secure enclave processing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157748)) "we offer providers like Tinfoil that are also end to end that we also attested using Secure Enclaves" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48349522)) - Open source, verifiable code (4 comments): "they seem to pretty open about their tech stack which is hugely differentiating compared to every other AI company" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49458145)) "Tinfoil are forced to publish what they run in the enclave in their GitHub account" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50159567)) "All the code running inside the enclave is open source" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48456565)) - Cloud use with local-level privacy (3 comments): "using services such as Tinfoil or Privatemode is an enormous step up from "trust me dude, we won't look at your data"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48708769)) "lets you use the model in the cloud while getting similar privacy as running locally" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985480)) "personally (ie privacy not liability) I trust it more than a contract" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49340569)) - Easy integration and reliable use (3 comments): "I loaded credits into Tinfoil the other day and have had zero issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341588)) "fully private and attestable AI which works amazing with Kilo Code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447198)) "tinfoil is very good, easy to integrate using their cli proxy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47612483)) ## What people warn about - Monitoring and logging concerns (3 comments): "One of them (Tinfoil) just put server-side scanning inside the enclave for the consumer product." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50158450)) "the tinfoil endpoint I used is heading towards surveillance as well by adding abuse monitoring" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50068723)) "It exfiltrates a log of classifier activations by ID and IP to Tinfoil." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50165379)) - High prices and cache pricing (2 comments): "tinfoil doesn't seem to distinguish between cached and input tokens. I think that would make it untenably expensive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655749)) "Their prices are extremely high compared to the competition" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49345330)) - Model list inaccurate or outdated (2 comments): "Your pricing faq says “all models are listed above.” They are not." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250028)) "the models are old (Tinfoil)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49535073)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Cerebras Inference](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cerebras.md): 109 recommend - [Groq API](https://hackerapproved.com/p/groq.md): 58 recommend - [Darkbloom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/darkbloom.md): 19 recommend - [Synthetic](https://hackerapproved.com/p/synthetic.md): 18 recommend - [GLM-4.7 on Cerebras](https://hackerapproved.com/p/glm-4-7-on-cerebras.md): 12 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://tinfoil.sh/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Tinfoil", https://hackerapproved.com/p/tinfoil/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).