Products · Product
Lightning Network
Raised as a usability problem by 15 people on Hacker News over 8 years (2018–2025), in 17 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Lightning requires opening channels, a confusing setup hassleUnreviewed
20182026- Users find Lightning Network's overall user experience horrible, blocking adoption2024-08-18
- Lightning's user experience is horrible, hard for ordinary users to use2023-05-26
- Lightning Network's user experience is awful, requiring channel opening2022-06-29
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 19 complaints
- Users must lock funds in channels up front, and opening or closing them on-chain is slow and costly2025-09-20
- Commenter can't figure out Lightning payments even after implementing Bitcoin, finds it convoluted2025-07-05
- Users find Lightning Network's overall user experience horrible, blocking adoption2024-08-18
- Lightning's user experience is horrible, hard for ordinary users to use2023-05-26
- The user experience is described as horrible, with no specific problem named2023-05-26
- Lightning Network's user experience is awful, requiring channel opening2022-06-29
- Payments fail when no route exists, and channels must be opened, kept online and locked up2022-02-26
- Too many steps and potential failure points for payments2021-10-02
- Payments require both parties to be online at the same time2021-05-19
- Users must rely on third-party apps or open channels while both parties are online2021-03-29
- Users can lose money if their ISP closes the Lightning connection2020-08-03
- Users struggle to find routes, refill channels, and receive payments without extra transactions2020-05-20
- Normal people find Lightning hard to understand and use because of channel setup and management2020-05-01
- Users must understand channels and what happens under the hood to use it2020-05-01
- Merchants must keep topping up channels or they cannot keep accepting payments2020-01-07
- Users must run hot wallets, which have a terrible user experience2019-03-28
- Current Lightning wallets are poorly designed and confusing, even for knowledgeable users2018-12-10
- Difficult to use, requires always-on nodes, funds can be lost2018-11-26
- Casual users can't tell what 'capacity' means or why it matters2018-02-28