Where to launch a side project: free places, in order

What counts as launching a side project?

A launch is the first time strangers can find, try and react to something you built. It is not a date on a calendar, even though several platforms are built around one. Product Hunt ranks products by day. Peerlist runs a Launchpad every week on Monday. DevHunt groups developer tools into weekly batches. Those formats reward people who can gather votes at a set time, which is hard when you have no followers.

The alternative is to treat a launch as several small placements spread over a month, each in a place that suits the project. Each one gives you a public URL, a few readers and some feedback. None of them promises traffic, and none of them has to work for the others to be worth doing.

Before you choose a place, decide what you want from it. Feedback mostly comes from communities. First users come from the places your users already look. A link on the web comes from directories. A place that is good at one of those is often poor at the others, so a list of channels without a goal is just a list of chores.

Where should the first launch go?

Start with a place that costs nothing and asks for almost nothing, so you have a public page while you prepare the rest. On this site that is the launch board. The reason to start there is concrete: it is free, it needs no account, there is no queue and no launch date to schedule, and the product is live as soon as you click the link in one confirmation email and press Publish.

1. Fill in the form: product name, URL, a tagline of up to 90 characters, a description, up to three categories, a pricing model (free, freemium, one-time payment, subscription or open source), your maker name and your email. A logo, up to four images, tags and a promo code are optional.
2. Open the one link in the email. It shows your pending launch, an Edit details button for anything you want to fix, and a Publish button. Publishing is a button press, not a page view, so a mail scanner that previews links cannot publish anything for you.
3. Press Publish. The launch goes live immediately, with a page of its own where visitors can vote and leave threaded comments.
4. A published launch is final, so read the preview once more before you press Publish. After that, a typo or a factual correction is an email to support@postyourbuildideas.com.

An unconfirmed launch stays private and expires after 24 hours, so nobody can list a product with your email address. Launches are listed verified first, then newest. Nobody can pay to move up: there is no paid placement and there are no ads.

A few limits keep spam out: three launches per hour from one network, five per email address per day, and a second launch for a website that already went live here in the last seven days is refused as a duplicate.

How do the main places to launch compare?

Queues, badge conditions and paid options change, so read each site's own rules before you submit. The free launch directory finder lists options by audience, and the launch platforms compared on this site go into the free tiers in detail.

Where does each kind of side project belong?

The first stop is the same for almost every project, but the second and third stops depend on what you built and who it is for.

• A web app or small SaaS. Launch on the board, then post in the community where the problem is discussed. Make the first screen usable without an account, so a visitor can judge it in a minute. Read the subreddits for startup ideas guide to find places that fit.
• A developer tool. Developers read Show HN and DevHunt. Show HN costs nothing but has rules; DevHunt accepts only developer tools, groups them in weekly batches and charges for a launch, and its free listings carry nofollow links. Start with Show HN if the tool can be run in a minute.
• An open-source project. The repository is the product page, so write the README for a stranger: one sentence, an install command and a screenshot or output sample. Use the repository as the URL on the launch board, then post to Show HN.
• A mobile app. Store review dates set your timeline, so launch when a public build exists, whether in the store or through a public test link. Put a web page in front of it that shows what the app does, because most launch places link to a website.
• An AI tool. Many AI tools launch every day, so one sentence about one narrow job beats a general claim. Hacker News's own Show HN guidelines ask for non-trivial work and say not to post quickly generated one-offs, so be ready to explain how and why you built it.
• A game. A game that runs in the browser with no download is the easiest to share, because people can play it in the time it takes to read the post. Show HN accepts things people can play with, and game communities have their own rules on self-promotion.
• A pre-launch waitlist. A sign-up page cannot be tried, and the Show HN guidelines list sign-up pages as off topic. BetaList features startups before launch or already live. On any board, say in the description that the product is early, so nobody expects a working version.

If you are still deciding what to build, the ideas board holds ideas other people posted and will not build, each with a generated build prompt you can paste into a coding tool.

How do communities and Show HN fit in?

Communities are where feedback comes from. Find the places where people already complain about the problem, read the rules, and spend a few days answering questions before you mention what you built. If the product is the honest answer to a question, say so once and say you made it. The guide on where to post app ideas lists several of these places and their rules.

Show HN is stricter. Its guidelines say it is for something you have made that other people can play with, that the project should be non-trivial, and that you should be around to discuss it. They ask you to make the project easy to try, ideally without signups or emails, and they treat sign-up pages, newsletters and other reading material as off topic.

• Post only if a stranger can try the project in a minute, without creating an account.
• Write a plain title that says what it is, and a first comment that explains why you built it and what is unfinished.
• Block out the hours after posting so you can answer every question honestly.
• Do not ask friends to upvote. Vote rings break the rules of most of these places, and moderators look for them.

Are Product Hunt and the paid-queue directories worth it?

They can be, as optional extras. Product Hunt has a very large audience and a daily ranking that resets at midnight Pacific. It needs a sign-in, it is curated, and your launch competes with every other product posted that day. That suits a project with a team or network ready to show up on the day. With no followers, treat it as one channel among several, not a requirement.

The newer launch platforms mostly work on a free queue with a paid way past it. As read on their own pages: TinyLaunch has a free standard launch through a queue, gives its badge and backlink to the top three only, and sells skipping the queue. Uneed has a free waiting line that assigns a launch date at least 50 days out and sells the option to pick a date. Smol Launch's free launch needs its badge on your site and your votes for five other launches, and covers a first launch only.

None of that is wrong. It is a business model, and a free tier is useful if you can wait. What matters is that you know the cost before you submit: a wait of weeks, a badge on your site, or money. Do not assume visitors from any directory are customers. Tag each link and compare results with the launch directory traffic calculator.

Should you pay to launch for the backlink?

Several launch platforms advertise a dofollow link from a domain with a high rating in a third-party SEO tool, and some sell a guaranteed link. That rating is one vendor's metric, not something Google publishes, and nobody can promise that a link from one directory page will move your search ranking.

If you pay for a launch, treat it as advertising and decide with numbers: what the page itself earns in visits, and what a visitor from it does on your site. If you are launching for the link alone, free routes exist, and your own pages that answer one question will do more for search over time than a directory listing. The launch board on this site sells no link, charges nothing and makes no claim about SEO.

In what order should you launch over the first month?

1. Day one: publish on the launch board with a clear tagline. Use a tagged link in anything you share, so you can tell where visits come from.
2. Days two and three: watch what first visitors stumble over, fix the top problem and reply to every comment. The launch copy generator can help rewrite a tagline that nobody understood.
3. First week: post in one community where the problem is discussed, following its rules, and say you built the project.
4. Second week: post a Show HN only if people can try the project without signing up, and only on a day you can answer questions for hours.
5. Third week: submit to one or two free directories, each with its own tagged link, and note any queue or condition.
6. Fourth week: compare channels by conversations and signups, not raw visits. Repeat the one that worked, drop the ones that did nothing, and consider Product Hunt only if people are ready to show up.

The product launch checklist breaks each step into tasks you can tick off, and the guide on launching without an audience covers the outreach and answer-page side in more detail.

What mistakes waste a launch?

• Launching everywhere in the same hour. You cannot reply well to six places at once, and you learn nothing about which one worked.
• Submitting a landing page where people expect something to try. Show HN says so outright; other places are less direct but readers react the same way.
• Asking friends to upvote. It is easy to spot, it breaks the rules of most places, and it tells you nothing about demand.
• Paying before measuring. Launch on free routes first, and pay only after you know what a visitor from a place does.
• Leaving comments unanswered. A reply from the maker is often the only reason a first visitor comes back.