WinDirStat
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 4 of 7 disk usage analyzers by recommenders
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.
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.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 85%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Long-running staple of Windows toolkits
“I've been using WinDirStat for a tree visualization of Windows disk space for a very long time.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Flame Graphs vs. Tree Maps vs. Sunburst (2017)” “very common tools from Windows admin toolkits”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Anthropic Cowork feature creates 10GB VM bundle on macOS without warning” “I loved windirstat back in the day.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Leaves – a text-UI disk usage treemap visualizer” Clear tree view of disk space
“I've been using WinDirStat for a tree visualization of Windows disk space for a very long time.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Flame Graphs vs. Tree Maps vs. Sunburst (2017)” “excellent and intuitive display of what's really taking up room on your storage devices”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “WinDirStat: Disk usage statistics viewer for Microsoft Windows clients, servers”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow scans of large filesystems
“the original WinDirStat walks the whole filesystem, can take long time”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “How to See What's Taking Up Space on Your Mac” “No need to wait for all those pacmen munching their way through the whole disk”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “WinDirStat: Disk usage statistics viewer for Microsoft Windows clients, servers” “it did take a long time, so it's plausible”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Harddrive Is Probably Full” - Comment from 27 Jul 2026 in “Harddrive Is Probably Full”
Other disk usage analyzers people recommend
The four most recommended other disk usage analyzers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ncdu | 22 | 1 | 96% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Leaves | 16 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| WizTree | 12 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | Approved |
| WinDirStatThis page | 11 | 2 | 85% | 5 | — | Approved |
| GrandPerspective | 11 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the original WinDirStat walks the whole filesystem, can take long time”
“Since it doesn't cheat, it goes slow.”
“windirstat currently doesn't take 3min to index 500k+ files on an 8x8tb drive raidz2 that's 90% full”
“it did take a long time, so it's plausible”
“uses the same approach as WizTree, being just as fast”
“I loved windirstat back in the day.”
“very common tools from Windows admin toolkits”
“A valuable tool that works.”
“No need to wait for all those pacmen munching their way through the whole disk”
“excellent and intuitive display of what's really taking up room on your storage devices”
“I've been using WinDirStat for a tree visualization of Windows disk space for a very long time.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.