Freenet
Fewer than 5 people recommend it so far, so there's no written verdict. Here is what commenters said.
Why people recommend it
“Maybe check out Mastodon, Matrix, (new) Freenet, etc.”
“Freenet had a different approach, even back in the early days”
Show 2 more
“I do agree with your broader point that there is massive scope for building truly decentralized governance systems on Freenet”
“Ghostkeys seem like part of a decent approach”
Caveats and dissent
“The new "Freenet" does not have anonymity as a design goal anymore”
Often compared with
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“we've also experimented with hosting git repos on Freenet”
“If you're a developer and are interested in building on Freenet I suggest starting with”
> Very cool project! Thank you! > Where can I learn more about this? If you don't mind watching a video I gave this talk back in March that should be fairly comprehensive: https://youtu.be/3SxNBz1VTE0?si=R4ifrsfEUJfvjDPx If you would prefer an article I recommend: https://freenet.org/about/news/summary-delta-sync/ > How is this different from CRDTs/CmRDTs? It's very closely related, you can view Freenet contract stat
“As the project's architect I'm entitled to make decisions about the project's future direction.”
“The rearchitected Freenet is faster, more flexible, and better equipped to offer a robust, decentralized alternative”
“For the past 5 years or so I've been working on a ground-up redesign of Freenet”
Threads where it came up
- Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps 16 mentions
- Show HN: Freenet alpha, a drop-in decentralized replacement for the web 2 mentions
- FreePinion – Comments on the page you are viewing, stored on Freenet 1 mention
- Hacker News with reduced priority for AI driven content 1 mention
- Project Xanadu: Even More Hindsight (2025) 1 mention
- "The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years." (2011) 1 mention
Data: freenet.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 17
“You need Freenet running on this computer”
“Maybe check out Mastodon, Matrix, (new) Freenet, etc.”
“Freenet is as legal as facebook or twitter”
“Freenet had a different approach, even back in the early days”
“the current version does not offer built-in anonymity”
“Freenet seems to not interoperate with the existing WWW as much”
“I do agree with your broader point that there is massive scope for building truly decentralized governance systems on Freenet”
“Ghostkeys seem like part of a decent approach”
“the current version is analogous to a full decentralized computer”
“I wrote a web browser for Freenet”
> Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement. The previous lead maintainer, Steve, voiced their frustration with your decision here: https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg55263.html To which you sent a brash reply, which sounds like you don't know Steve's position in the community: https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg55264.html T
“it stores the most recent messages”
> and after over a year of debate There was no "year of debate". You came to the mailing list and announced it for the first time as a finalized decision already, without any prior debate with the original team. The "board" you cited as the body which allegedly discussed it did neither join the mailing list discussion, nor were you willing to hand out their contact info. It's all public for anyone to see on the maili
“The new "Freenet" does not have anonymity as a design goal anymore”
“You can go to https://freenet.org/ to try Freenet out yourself!”
“Work on a clean-slate successor started in 2019 under the internal name Locutus.”
“related to Original FreeNet (by now rebranded to Hyphanet) in name only”