Where to Get Feedback on Your Project for Free, and How to Ask for It
Get feedback where people reply in writing and can try the thing: Show HN comments, dev.to posts tagged showdev, a free launch board with threaded comments, a maker community such as WIP, or a subreddit built for showing projects. The venue matters less than the question you ask. A specific task and a specific question return usable criticism; “what do you think?” returns compliments.
Why is feedback a different goal from traffic?
Traffic counts people who arrive. Feedback needs people who stay long enough to form an opinion and care enough to write it down. Those two rarely go together at scale: a post that reaches ten thousand skimmers may produce three replies, and a quiet thread among forty practitioners may produce the one sentence that changes your onboarding.
So when you pick a place for feedback, rank it by how replies work, not by audience size. Can a reader comment without making an account? Does the place expect criticism, or does it expect applause? Will the people there have used a competitor? The places below differ on exactly those points, and each entry says which kind of reply to expect.
Which places give useful replies?
Facts come from each site’s own pages, read on 13 November 2026. Indie Hackers could not be read by our automated check, so its entry is limited to well-known basics.
01 Show HN
The Show HN section of Hacker News, where the replies are the point.
- Reply style
- Technical, direct, sometimes blunt
- Account
- Yes, to post
- Catch
- It must be something people can try
The guidelines tell commenters to ask out of curiosity, avoid cross-examining and suggest alternatives instead of saying someone is doing it wrong. They also warn posters not to ask friends to upvote or comment. In practice you get detailed objections from people who know your problem space.
Your job after posting is to stay and answer, calmly, for several hours. Thank people for objections that are right. The Show HN post templates show how to word the first comment so replies have something to push against.
02 Lobsters
A computing-focused link-and-discussion site that runs on invitations.
- Account
- By invitation only
- Self-promotion
- Its guidelines give a rule of thumb of under a quarter of your stories and comments in the last year
- New users
- Barred from submitting self-promotion for their first 70 days
The about page describes an invitation tree meant to slow spam, and says the site is more a garden party than a debate club. A project there is read by people who write software for a living, and the tone is gentler than on larger forums.
The access rules make it a poor tool for a launch and a decent one for a long-running project if someone you know can invite you. Do not ask a stranger for an invitation just to post a link.
03 DEV Community (showdev)
A developer blogging community where a post tagged showdev describes something the author built.
- Account
- Free account needed to post
- Reply style
- Comments and reactions on a written post
- Fits
- Projects you can explain in an article
A showdev post is a short write-up, not an advert: what you built, what went wrong, one screenshot. The tag is in current use on the site’s front page. Comments tend to be encouraging, which makes the post a good place to ask a pointed question rather than for a verdict.
The dev.to launch playbook walks through the article, including what to put in the first paragraph.
04 Indie Hackers
A founder community with a forum, where posts about products tend to attract replies from other founders.
- Reply style
- Founder-to-founder, often about pricing and positioning
- Catch
- Our automated check could not read its pages
Replies lean toward business questions: who pays, how you price, how you reach them. That is feedback on the company more than on the interface. Ask what you want answered, such as whether your pricing page makes sense to someone who has never seen it.
05 r/SideProject
A well-known subreddit where people show projects they are building.
- Reply style
- Mixed: encouragement, occasional detailed critique
- Catch
- Reddit refused our automated check; rules differ by community and change
Many posts on this kind of community get no reply at all, so the title matters: say what the project does and what you want help with. Link a page that works without an account. Post once, and answer anyone who writes.
06 WIP
A community of makers who post what they shipped each day and cheer each other on.
- Reply style
- Supportive, accountability-driven
- Account
- Yes
Do not go here for a verdict. Go for people who will notice if you stop, and who will try a thing because you shipped it. It works best as a steady habit, and it pairs with a place that produces sharper critique.
07 Post your build ideas (launch page, comments and Discuss)
A free launch board and forum, ours, where each launch has threaded comments and the site has a Discuss area.
- Cost
- Free; no account to read or reply, one verified email to launch
- Reply style
- Threaded comments and votes
- Catch
- Small, so few replies; no promise of volume
A launch here gives you a page where a visitor can vote and comment without an account. Launch your project free, and put your single question in the first line of the description so that the first reply answers it.
A published launch is final, so the description will not absorb feedback. Take it in through the thread instead: answer each comment, treat each one as a data point and keep the ones that repeat.
Open Post your build ideas (launch page, comments and Discuss) →
How do you ask so people answer?
People answer questions they can finish in a minute. A request that needs an essay gets nothing. Put one task and one question in the post, and make the first one possible without a sign-up.
I built [name], which [one-line job]. Try this: [one task, 2 minutes]. Then tell me: [one question, e.g. what did you expect to happen after you clicked X?]. I am especially unsure about [the thing you are doubting].
Naming your doubt gives readers permission to be critical. It also steers replies to the part you can still change. The feedback request template has variants for email and for forums.
What do you do with the feedback once it arrives?
- Count repeats, not volume. One strong opinion is a story. Three people hitting the same wall is a defect.
- Separate the problem from the fix. A reader who suggests a feature has noticed a problem. Write down the problem and decide the fix yourself.
- Reply within a day and say what you changed. Commenters come back to threads where the author listens.
- Ignore the request that would change who the product is for. Feedback from people outside your user is cheap to collect and expensive to follow.
If you want practice with other people’s ideas first, the ideas board holds ideas posted by people who will not build them. The answer page on getting feedback on an MVP goes deeper on the unfinished case.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I get honest feedback on my side project?
Try Show HN if people can try it without signing up, a showdev post on DEV Community, a maker community such as WIP, or the comments on a free launch board. Honest replies come from people who can use the project and are asked a specific question. Praise is the default answer to a vague request.
Why does nobody reply to my post?
Usually the post asks for too much or says too little. Replace “thoughts?” with one task a reader can finish in two minutes and one question about it, and make sure the link works without an account. Also check that the place expects replies, since some communities mostly collect upvotes.
Is it okay to ask for feedback in several communities?
Yes, as long as each post is written for that community and posted separately. Pasting one identical message into many places is what rules against self-promotion are written to stop. Stagger posts by a few days so you can answer replies in each and learn which question worked.
How do I handle harsh criticism?
Wait before replying, then look for the problem inside the harshness. Thank the person, ask a clarifying question if the point is unclear, and say what you will change or why you will not. A calm reply is also visible to every later reader of the thread.
Should I pay for user testing?
Not at the start. Five free conversations with people who have your problem will show most of what a paid panel would. Pay when you need a specific audience you cannot reach, such as people in a regulated profession, or when you have a prototype stable enough to test properly.
Post your build ideas publishes this page and runs a free launch board that competes with some of the sites it names. Facts about other sites came from their own pages on the date shown above; terms, queues and prices change, so confirm on their sites before you decide. About the publisher.