# Transmission

19 Hacker News commenters recommended Transmission and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free BitTorrent client praised for stability, low system load, and headless use, with a useful command-line and remote daemon. Critics point to bugs, regressions after v4, and tracker overload.

## Why people recommend it

- Stable and reliable for years (3 comments): "I never have issues with Transmission and actively avoid other feature-rich clients" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49239934)) "they've really felt "complete" for the years I've been using it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49237974)) "Worked since forever for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240239))
- Good command-line and RPC tools (3 comments): "transmission daemon and transmission-remote was better in that regard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46032886)) "Massive thanks to the team! Really excited to try the RPC APIs out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46790683)) "transmission-cli is great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46039589))
- Runs headless with low load (2 comments): "can be installed headless with negligible system load on a vast number of devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366016)) "transmission daemon and transmission-remote was better in that regard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46032886))

## What people warn about

- Bugs and regressions since v4 (3 comments): "there have been lots of little bugs to contend with" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46789916)) "Transmission botched its v3 -> v4 transition by underestimating the difficulty of keeping regressions under control" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49275278)) "4.0 to 4.0.5 broke Sonarr total file management" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46790359))
- Tracker overload from update requests (2 comments): "a bug caused it to hammer tracker servers with update status requests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240642)) "due to a critical bug in its announce logic, which causes it to overwhelm trackers with excessive requests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46790335))
- Feels slow, falling behind rivals (2 comments): "Am not fond of transmission at all. Feels slow and sluggish in comparison." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46371006)) "They have been slowly falling behind other clients." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49243766))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [qBittorrent](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qbittorrent.md): 29 recommend
- [rtorrent](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rtorrent.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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