{"slug": "pico-sh", "name": "pico.sh", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 1, "score": 1.795, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2025-12-04", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "I used pico or nano as my everyday unix coding editor for something like fifteen years", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I used pico or nano as my everyday unix coding editor for something like fifteen years", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "pico.sh", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://pico.sh/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["pico.sh", "pico", "PICO"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 804708432, "item_id": 50294277, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294277", "by": "marssaxman", "date": "2026-10-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used pico or nano as my everyday unix coding editor for something like fifteen years", "excerpt": "I used pico or nano as my everyday unix coding editor for something like fifteen years, starting in the late '90s. It was just fine. I couldn't stand vi and didn't see the point of emacs; I type faster than I think, so I never found that text-editing was enough of a bottleneck to make sophisticated automation worth the effort. I only stopped using pico/nano after writing my own editor, which blatantly stole pico's in", "context": "", "use_case": "everyday coding editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto"}, {"id": 786418274, "item_id": 49151142, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151142", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-08-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "another one: https://pico.sh", "excerpt": "another one: https://pico.sh", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ssh ssh.place"}, {"id": 786185696, "item_id": 49136606, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49136606", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-08-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Nice! The entire https://pico.sh constellation of services are built off rss", "excerpt": "Nice! The entire https://pico.sh constellation of services are built off rss for notifications. https://pico.sh/feeds is an ssh app that is an rss-to-email service.", "context": "", "use_case": "RSS-based notifications", "switched_from": "", "story": "I \u2665 RSS \u2013 A directory of people who love RSS"}, {"id": 767048337, "item_id": 47940521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47940521", "by": "eiiot", "date": "2026-04-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "feel like fresh air", "excerpt": "This seems like a great opportunity for new platforms who are rethinking the OSS space to finally gain the traction they need to be effective. For a collaborative platform, quantity is key, and I am hopeful that someone who is interested in advancing the software space will become the new go-to. This isn't to say that GitHub hasn't been innovating, but at least from my perspective, the way we've used git for the past", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostty is leaving GitHub"}, {"id": 743815665, "item_id": 46488479, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488479", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-01-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "prose.sh is fully open source as well", "excerpt": "I know this isn\u2019t quite the spirit of self hosting, but for people that aren\u2019t ready to self they host can use https://prose.sh which interops with Hugo. It\u2019s a safe stepping stone into self hosting a blog for anyone who wants to get started slowly. https://prose.sh is fully open source as well https://github.com/picosh/pico It even has a Hugo migration repo for when users want to make the jump https://github.com/pic", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jeffgeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 772208960, "item_id": 48263060, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48263060", "by": "akersten", "date": "2026-05-24", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Who's to say this fancy new PICO thing doesn't produce different pixels in a year when the algorithm improves", "excerpt": "And the most critical thing about JPG is that the decoding is deterministic. Who's to say this fancy new PICO thing doesn't produce different pixels in a year when the algorithm improves, or the local model changes, etc. Imo, generative AI and its derivatives should be completely shunned as image/video encoders. They are simply an inappropriate tool for the job. And I say that as an AIpilled token addict. It would be", "context": "", "use_case": "learned image compression", "switched_from": "", "story": "Perceptual Image Codec: What Matters in Practical Learned Image Compression"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["everyday coding editor", "rss-based notifications", "learned image compression"], "compared": [{"slug": "nano", "name": "nano", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gnu-emacs", "name": "GNU Emacs", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "vi", "name": "vi", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 799368642, "item_id": 49960540, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49960540", "by": "antoniomika", "date": "2026-10-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "as part of the pico.sh [2] membership ($2/mo)", "excerpt": "A number of years ago, I created a fully open source (MIT) project called sish [0] that does just this. sish is a SSH server written specifically for tunneling. You get all of the benefits of SSH, but also automatic TLS, a web console of requests a tunnel has received, and various other features. You can also tunnel more than just HTTP(S). You can tunnel websockets, TCP connections, and even have internal alias conne", "context": "creator", "use_case": "hosted developer services", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-hosted HTTP tunnels with SSH and Nginx"}, {"id": 783418400, "item_id": 48963650, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48963650", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-07-18", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I run a set of ssh-based services over at https://pico.sh and love seeing all the indie web content on HN!", "excerpt": "Very cool! I run a set of ssh-based services over at https://pico.sh and love seeing all the indie web content on HN! Sftp is still very useful even in 2026", "context": "", "use_case": "ssh-based hosting services", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day"}, {"id": 768917520, "item_id": 48057345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057345", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's great for us because each sub is a year", "excerpt": "We take a slightly different approach for https://pico.sh -- no automatic subscription, but we charge for an entire year. It's great for us because each sub is a year and if someone truly isn't using our services then it'll quietly drift into the background for the end-user.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Self-Cancelling Subscription"}, {"id": 768321440, "item_id": 48020090, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48020090", "by": "smcleod", "date": "2026-05-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "TUIs reclaimed popularity long before Claude Code existed. Just look at the Charm ecosystem https://charm.land", "context": "", "use_case": "SSH-delivered TUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why TUIs Are Back"}, {"id": 768014865, "item_id": 48000929, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48000929", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-05-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I enjoy hacking on https://pico.sh", "excerpt": "I think if you look purely at the numbers, the real reason TUIs are popular is claude code, everything else is background noise compared to it. What originally got me excited to build TUIs was the concept of delivering apps over the wire via SSH. SSH apps resemble a browser in that way: no local installs required. It's a major reason why I enjoy hacking on https://pico.sh -- deploying the TUI requires zero user invol", "context": "", "use_case": "Delivering TUI apps over SSH", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why TUIs Are Back"}, {"id": 766000560, "item_id": 47875035, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47875035", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-04-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Over at https://pico.sh we are chugging along and having a blast.", "excerpt": "Agreed! Over at https://pico.sh we are chugging along and having a blast. Profitable but at a scale that is manageable for us. Cheers", "context": "runs profitable small-scale cloud service", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Building a Cloud"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48000028", "title": "Why TUIs Are Back", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46145902", "title": "Tunnl.gg", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50287599", "title": "NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958569", "title": "Self-hosted HTTP tunnels with SSH and Nginx", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149805", "title": "Show HN: ssh ssh.place", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49136063", "title": "I \u2665 RSS \u2013 A directory of people who love RSS", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "quotes": [{"id": 804708432, "item_id": 50294277, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294277", "by": "marssaxman", "date": "2026-10-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used pico or nano as my everyday unix coding editor for something like fifteen years", "excerpt": "I used pico or nano as my everyday unix coding editor for something like fifteen years, starting in the late '90s. It was just fine. I couldn't stand vi and didn't see the point of emacs; I type faster than I think, so I never found that text-editing was enough of a bottleneck to make sophisticated automation worth the effort. I only stopped using pico/nano after writing my own editor, which blatantly stole pico's in", "context": "", "use_case": "everyday coding editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto"}, {"id": 786418274, "item_id": 49151142, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151142", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-08-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "another one: https://pico.sh", "excerpt": "another one: https://pico.sh", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ssh ssh.place"}, {"id": 786185696, "item_id": 49136606, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49136606", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-08-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Nice! The entire https://pico.sh constellation of services are built off rss", "excerpt": "Nice! The entire https://pico.sh constellation of services are built off rss for notifications. https://pico.sh/feeds is an ssh app that is an rss-to-email service.", "context": "", "use_case": "RSS-based notifications", "switched_from": "", "story": "I \u2665 RSS \u2013 A directory of people who love RSS"}, {"id": 772208960, "item_id": 48263060, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48263060", "by": "akersten", "date": "2026-05-24", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Who's to say this fancy new PICO thing doesn't produce different pixels in a year when the algorithm improves", "excerpt": "And the most critical thing about JPG is that the decoding is deterministic. Who's to say this fancy new PICO thing doesn't produce different pixels in a year when the algorithm improves, or the local model changes, etc. Imo, generative AI and its derivatives should be completely shunned as image/video encoders. They are simply an inappropriate tool for the job. And I say that as an AIpilled token addict. It would be", "context": "", "use_case": "learned image compression", "switched_from": "", "story": "Perceptual Image Codec: What Matters in Practical Learned Image Compression"}, {"id": 767048337, "item_id": 47940521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47940521", "by": "eiiot", "date": "2026-04-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "feel like fresh air", "excerpt": "This seems like a great opportunity for new platforms who are rethinking the OSS space to finally gain the traction they need to be effective. For a collaborative platform, quantity is key, and I am hopeful that someone who is interested in advancing the software space will become the new go-to. This isn't to say that GitHub hasn't been innovating, but at least from my perspective, the way we've used git for the past", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostty is leaving GitHub"}, {"id": 743815665, "item_id": 46488479, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488479", "by": "qudat", "date": "2026-01-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "prose.sh is fully open source as well", "excerpt": "I know this isn\u2019t quite the spirit of self hosting, but for people that aren\u2019t ready to self they host can use https://prose.sh which interops with Hugo. It\u2019s a safe stepping stone into self hosting a blog for anyone who wants to get started slowly. https://prose.sh is fully open source as well https://github.com/picosh/pico It even has a Hugo migration repo for when users want to make the jump https://github.com/pic", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jeffgeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo"}, {"id": 738349904, "item_id": 46146869, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146869", "by": "phrotoma", "date": "2025-12-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I just want to say that I love pico.sh <3", "excerpt": "I just want to say that I love pico.sh <3", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tunnl.gg"}]}