July 2, 2026
S3, but make it messy
Show HN: ZeroFS – A log-structured filesystem for S3
A new cloud file system drops, and the comments instantly scream “vibe coded”
TLDR: ZeroFS is a new project that tries to turn Amazon’s cloud storage into something that behaves more like a regular place to keep files, backed by public tests and speed claims. But commenters fixated on trust, mocking it as “vibe coded” and questioning the site itself, turning the launch into a debate about credibility.
A new Hacker News demo called ZeroFS is pitching a bold idea: treat Amazon’s S3 cloud storage like a file system, with public tests, benchmark charts, and promises that it can handle huge files by design. On paper, it’s a classic builder story — lots of testing, lots of numbers, and a proud “look, the checks run on every change” energy. But in the comments, the real show began, and the crowd was not ready to clap politely.
The loudest reaction was pure trust panic. One commenter flat-out said, “Entrusting data storage to a vibe coded filesystem seems imprudent,” which pretty much set the mood for the whole thread. Another piled on with “Seems purely vibecoded,” turning “vibe coded” into the instant meme of the discussion — the ultimate insult for a project that wants people to trust it with their files. Others weren’t just skeptical about the software; they were side-eyeing the website itself, asking why the landing page was pulling in JavaScript from another domain, which gave the whole thing an extra layer of internet-detective drama.
Still, not everyone came just to roast. One commenter pointed out that Amazon S3 itself uses a similar “log-like” storage idea under the hood, basically saying: calm down, this concept isn’t fantasy. But the thread’s main verdict was clear: cool idea, massive trust issues. The tech might be serious, but the comments turned it into a reality show about whether anyone should trust a shiny new storage tool that gives off even a faint whiff of AI-generated startup energy.
Key Points
- •ZeroFS is presented as a log-structured filesystem built for Amazon S3.
- •The project runs pjdfstest on every change, with a public list of excluded cases that require semantics NFS and 9P cannot express.
- •A SQLite benchmark measures random reads on ZeroFS when served from local cache.
- •The article states that a raw S3 round-trip typically takes 50–300 ms.
- •ZeroFS is described as addressable by design, using 64-bit inode and size fields and 32 KiB extents.