Show HN: I Built a Fair Alternative to Product Hunt for Indie Makers Like You
10 comments
·January 15, 2025dalemhurley
I really like the direction you’re taking. Product Hunt can feel like it’s run more for the benefit of the maintainers than for the community. It’s their service, so fair enough, but it also means users sometimes lose out. And let’s face it—there’s definitely some gaming of the system going on.
Your approach seems promising. Have you considered taking it even further, maybe by making the platform more decentralized or democratized, kind of like a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)? That might align the incentives more directly with the indie maker community and help keep everything transparent. In any case, I’m glad to see new ideas that give smaller products and teams a fair shot.
Keep at it!
D
pinkmuffinere
I see a new product-hunt alternative launched every couple months here. Maybe I’m cynical, but I don’t think we’re going to displace product hunt with things like new voting dynamics. They already have the network effects, so I think you’d need to make a relatively large change to stand a real chance.
Edit: Here’s a proposal for a bigger change. do some free advertising for the submitted ideas. Run simple Google/youtube/facebook ads for them, just directing people to their page on your platform. Hopefully this doesn’t just burn cash, since you’re actually advertising for their page on your platform, so it’s good for you in the end. Perhaps submissions have a small fee in the long-term, to monetize the platform.
tasoeur
Let’s go full meta and build a product hunt… but for product hunt alternatives!
airstrike
This is awesome! Congrats on the metalaunch ;-) I found the site hard to navigate visually as everything was equally prominent (in fact, yesterday's launches pop more than the current ones right now), so I took a stab at a different layout.
Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/4qoY7o2.png
Code here: https://gist.github.com/airstrike/923a7049d5cde7405e60e99e22...
PaulHoule
I think the only product that you could really launch on Product Hunt is a Product Hunt clone.
klabb3
Another related aspect: it’s likely that tech hype sphere will not actually make much of a difference unless you’re selling to those people directly. My app Payload got featured in fastcompany, and I thought that was amazing. It drove traffic to the website and I was just waiting for the users… that didn’t come. And then a few days later back to normal.
On the other hand, the less prestigious tech blogs for regular people (think PC magazines) were much better at driving both real users and also traffic.
Anyway, the point is that your customers might not be on product hunt checking out the coolest newest hypiest products. In fact, it’s very unlikely they are. Just a reminder to not take these games so seriously.
rgbrgb
I'm not seeing what makes this more fair or product hunt unfair. Can you talk about that piece?
If I'm reading between the lines, it kind of seems like you think product hunt is unfair because savvy startups activate their users for votes. Wouldn't the same thing happen here?
nbuujocjut
How would you handle the situation that if this is successful, you’ll get massively more than 10 candidates each day?
danimirror
Love the idea! Would be amazing if the ranking algorithm would be public. As in you know exactly what needs to be done to rank higher
JawsofDeath
Congrats! I love the idea!
I’m an indie maker, just like many of you. A few months back, I launched a product on one of the big platforms, and... nothing. It got buried under dozens of other launches within hours. All that work, all that excitement is gone in the blink of an eye. No one even saw it.
It stung. I wasn’t mad, well, maybe a little but mostly, I just felt invisible. The truth is, indie makers like me don’t have big teams or budgets to fight for visibility. We rely on genuine support and connections. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many great ideas never get the attention they deserve because they’re overshadowed.
So, I decided to build something different: https://itslaunched.com
Here’s the idea:
• 10 launches per day, max. Limiting the number of daily launches ensures that every product gets its moment in the spotlight.
• 2 votes per user, per day. This isn’t a popularity contest. You only get two votes, so people have to really think about which products they want to support. It’s quality over quantity.
• “Under Radar” feature. This one’s my favorite. If a product doesn’t get much love on its launch day, it gets a second chance to shine the next day. Because timing shouldn’t be the only thing standing between you and success.
There’s more like badges, comments, streaks but the heart of it is simple: a fair shot for indie makers.
I built this because I believe every product deserves to be seen, especially the ones built by solo makers and small teams putting their heart into something they truly care about. And I didn’t build this to compete with Product Hunt. I built it to give indie makers the platform they deserve, one where their creativity truly gets noticed.
If this sounds like something you’d want to check out, I’d love your thoughts. I’m still tweaking and improving it every day based on feedback.
Let me know what you think and if you’ve got a product you’re proud of, I’d love to see it shine.