Post Your Build Ideas vs Hacker News: A Bar to Clear or a Board to Fill

Is Hacker News a launch platform at all?

Not really, and its own pages say so. The general guidelines state that the site is not primarily for promotion: posting your own work some of the time is fine, but the main use should be curiosity. Show HN is one corner inside that, with its own short page of rules. The board we run exists for launches and, separately, for app ideas, so the two are built for different purposes. All the Hacker News facts below come from its guidelines pages, read on 13 November 2026.

What does a Show HN have to be?

The Show HN page is a checklist in prose, and every line is a way to be refused. A post qualifies when it is something people can run on their computers or hold in their hands, and the maker is around to discuss it. These do not qualify:

• Blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists and other reading material, because they cannot be tried.
• Landing pages and fundraisers.
• Quickly generated one-offs. The page says the project should be non-trivial and that anybody can do a one-off now.
• Minor releases such as a patch number, although a major overhaul is probably fine.

That is a demanding bar, and it is the reason a good Show HN is respected. Early-stage work is welcome: the page says a project needn’t look slick. The line that stings is about access. It asks you to make the thing easy to try, ideally without barriers such as sign-ups or emails, promises more feedback if you do, and says to come back later if the work is not ready for users. Many web products put the sign-up first, so check yours against that line.

How does the conversation differ?

On Hacker News the comment guidelines shape the thread: be kind, converse curiously rather than cross-examine, suggest alternatives instead of saying someone is doing it wrong, and do not post generated text. Show HN adds that anyone sharing work is making a contribution, however modest. You can expect pointed technical questions, asked in a tone the site polices.

Our board has threaded comments under each launch and a Discuss forum beside them, and an optional weekly digest email for people who want to follow along. It is smaller and quieter. The upside is less pressure; the downside is fewer people reading. Either way, answer each comment, since responding to launch comments is the habit that turns a thread into feedback.

A sequence that uses both

1. Get the first-run path to work with no account, so a stranger can try the product in a few minutes.
2. Publish on our board to launch your product free. You get a stable public link, and because a published launch is final, run the wording past a couple of readers before you press Publish.
3. Write the Show HN post yourself. Hacker News asks that posts are written by you, not generated, and the Show HN post templates show the structure.
4. Post when you can stay in the thread for the first few hours, and do not ask friends to upvote or comment, since the guidelines say that is not acceptable.

The Show HN playbook covers timing and titles in more detail, and the launch copy generator drafts the plain description both posts need.

Who should start where?

• A tool or library people can run without an account: Show HN suits it, and our board is a useful second page.
• A product behind a sign-up wall: the Show HN page prefers a way in without one and says feedback improves when you provide it. Fix the first-run path first, and use our board for a public page meanwhile.
• Only an idea, no product yet: neither launch route fits. Browse the public ideas board or post the idea, and look at developer tool ideas for what builders are asking for.
• You want a technical audience’s blunt feedback: Show HN, as long as you can be around to answer.
• You want no account and no waiting: our board, with the honest limit that its audience is small.

For the wider field, see Show HN alternatives and Product Hunt vs Hacker News.