Tree Style Tab
Hacker ApprovedRanked 18 of 70 browser extensions by recommenders
Firefox extension that shows tabs as a nested tree, keeping hundreds organized and readable. Common caveat: it can use gigabytes of RAM and feels complex.
Firefox extension that shows tabs as a nested tree, keeping hundreds organized and readable. Common caveat: it can use gigabytes of RAM and feels complex.
28 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 23
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 23 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Organizes many tabs as a tree
“Something like TreeStyleTab makes it easy to keep hundreds of tabs organized with clear, easily-manipulated structure”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “I Won't Download Your App. The Web Version Is A-OK” “the Tree Style Tabs were infinitely cooler, because they were a tree, not a list”
Comment from 3 Oct 2026 in “Make Tmux the OS” “to have an explorer-like tree view of my browsing session”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “We finally learned to center a div, then browsers added sidebars” - Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Explore Wikipedia Like a Windows XP Desktop”
Reason to stay on Firefox
“The best part of Firefox (for me, besides being able to have vertical tree-style tabs)”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “How to Disable Firefox's New Emoji Picker” “keeping me on Firefox (unnerfed uBlock Origin and Tree Style Tabs, respectively)”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Orion Browser by Kagi” “my favorite thing about Firefox is Treestyle Tabs”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Firefox Nova – our first look at the browser's big redesign” Hard to go back from
“Tree style tabs, can never go back to a browser without them”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Hang on to Your Firefox” “personally I can't go back to a regular browsing setup”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript” “feel like a bit of a downgrade from Tree Style Tabs”
Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser” Vertical layout shows full titles
“Tree Style Tab works alright as an extension-provided sidebar.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Making Firefox's right-click not suck with about:config” “I can read all the tab titles due to the vertical layout.”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “A tab hoarder's journey to sanity”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Complex and clunky to use
“I used and love TST (plus a huge number of extensions - TST is an extension that is extended with further extensions!) but it's complex and clunky.”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser” “the deep nesting of TST to get in the way more than it helps”
Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “A farewell to Arc browser” Display and breakage problems
“Tree Style Tab addon doesn't work properly to this day because of this.”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Just the Browser” “couldn't get them to display properly without going to about:config”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter”
Other browser extensions people recommend
The four most recommended other browser extensions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SponsorBlock | 137 | 4 | 97% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Firefox Multi-Account Containers | 76 | 13 | 85% | 10 | 7.5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| NoScript | 61 | 11 | 85% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Claude in Chrome | 53 | 42 | 56% | 9 | — | — |
| Tree Style TabThis page | 23 | 5 | 82% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
32 of the 34 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the extension must have a memory leak as it tends to use gigabytes of RAM”
“this is also why I like tab groups and tree-style tabs”
“it's pretty rare for it to break”
“I used and love TST (plus a huge number of extensions - TST is an extension that is extended with further extensions!) but it's complex and clunky.”
“the deep nesting of TST to get in the way more than it helps”
“feel like a bit of a downgrade from Tree Style Tabs”
“the Tree Style Tabs were infinitely cooler, because they were a tree, not a list”
“Tree style tabs, can never go back to a browser without them”
“to have an explorer-like tree view of my browsing session”
“the tree-style tab manger feels more natural to me there”
“personally I can't go back to a regular browsing setup”
“keeping me on Firefox (unnerfed uBlock Origin and Tree Style Tabs, respectively)”
“I prefer my treestyle tabs.”
“in combination with Tree Style Tabs largely blur the line”
“criminally underrated for navigating hierarchical data”
“The best part of Firefox (for me, besides being able to have vertical tree-style tabs)”
“I built it because I love the Tree Style Tab Extension in Firefox.”
“Something like TreeStyleTab makes it easy to keep hundreds of tabs organized with clear, easily-manipulated structure”
“No point without tree style tabs.”
“No point to vertical tabs without tree style tabs.”
“my favorite thing about Firefox is Treestyle Tabs”
“Tree Style Tab works alright as an extension-provided sidebar.”
“Tree Style Tab addon doesn't work properly to this day because of this.”
“I can read all the tab titles due to the vertical layout.”
“The tree style tabs never sat right with me mentally, couldn't say why”
“Hoard away and look like a pro doing it”
“was also a very comprehensive solution”
“couldn't get them to display properly without going to about:config”
“There's nothing like Tree Style Tabs for Chrome (not usably implemented anyway)”
“Using TST and have tabs hidden few years now. So although there's a chance, it certainly isn't something that happens often.”
“especially Tree Style Tabs”
“I use Tree Style Tabs extension (obviously), so maybe the feature is coming from there?”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.