# WinDirStat

11 Hacker News commenters recommended WinDirStat and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free treemap of what takes up space on Windows drives, with an intuitive display. Main caveat: it scans every file, so large drives take a long time.

## Why people recommend it

- Long-running staple of Windows toolkits (3 comments): "I've been using WinDirStat for a tree visualization of Windows disk space for a very long time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428255)) "very common tools from Windows admin toolkits" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220603)) "I loved windirstat back in the day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937412))
- Clear tree view of disk space (2 comments): "I've been using WinDirStat for a tree visualization of Windows disk space for a very long time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428255)) "excellent and intuitive display of what's really taking up room on your storage devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478505))

## What people warn about

- Slow scans of large filesystems (4 comments): "the original WinDirStat walks the whole filesystem, can take long time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299525)) "No need to wait for all those pacmen munching their way through the whole disk" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478754)) "it did take a long time, so it's plausible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051183))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [WizTree](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wiztree.md): 12 recommend
- [GrandPerspective](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grandperspective.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

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