tldr

What hackers pick instead

• manRecommended for its useful, searchable reference pages, including man -k for finding the right section. Common caveat: arcane and frustrating to use.15recommend
• GNU InfoPeople recommend it as a descriptive offline documentation viewer that beats web search and is often preferred over man pages. Critics find it needlessly complicated and frustrating.7recommend

Every quote

The 11 most detailed of 13 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I like everything about tldr except for the fact that every way to use it is an Internet-dependent client

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Notes on Clarifying Man Pages”

2. tldr is so good, i wish it was a part of the os the same way manpages are just to help out newcomers

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “SSH Secret Menu”

3. tldr, navi cheatsheets are essentially a great set of how to do X using Y for terminal utilities

   Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Show HN: TERMy – A fast terminal assistant that does not use LLMs”

4. usually just a pile of typical usage examples, almost always covers what I want

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Installing and using HP-UX 9”

5. It's essentially a collection of example invocations of *nix commands.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “SSH Secret Menu”

6. the help menu should provide examples like `tldr`

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “MCP Is Dead”

7. My go-to for examples is ‘tldr’

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Examples for the tcpdump and dig man pages”

8. I've found tldr to be useful

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code”

9. tldr is an infinitely better name than tlrc

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Notes on Clarifying Man Pages”

10. `tldr` is deprecated, in favour of `tlrc`

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “Notes on Clarifying Man Pages”

11. The main tldr is horrifyingly slow iirc.

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “Notes on Clarifying Man Pages”