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24 alternatives to A support network for your weekend side-project

Hey HN -- A few weeks ago I launched Pioneer (https://pioneer.app). Pioneer is an experiment to try and find & help creative people around the world working on interesting projects. A project could be anything -- open source work, research in physics or biology, or creating art. Unlike other grant programs, the way we find people is through crowdsourcing. Applicants vote on each other (like HN / Reddit) and the best projects float to the top. We have industry experts (Patrick Collison, Tyler Cowen, Stephen Wolfram, etc) act as "mods" to sharpen the quality of the leaderboard.…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. A support network for your weekend side-project launched in 2018; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1
    Pioneer▲237

    An online tournament for productivity.

    2018 · pioneer.app · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    A fully remote accelerator

    2020 · pioneer.app · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    A home for founders on day 0

    2021 · pioneer.app · its alternatives →

  4. 4SG

    Hello everyone. Just launched my project called "SideProjectors". It's a market place to sell and buy side projects. Would love to hear your feedback on it. Better yet, would love to see if you have any side projects you would like to sell (or offer) to others. I had the idea for awhile, there has also been several "Sell HN" threads. Anyway, here's to the MVP! Thanks.

    2013 · its alternatives →

  5. 5PT

    I made this for people like myself who keep a list of ideas for apps / startups. I also made it for people who are curious to see what projects others have "in their drawer"... and who may want to have a say in which idea should see the light of day. https://ideas.dynamate.io/ The site allows creators to anonymously showcase their idea: Title. Description text. Maybe some mockups... I've tried to make it so that it's quick and easy to just dump an idea in there that's been sitting on some list of yours for months - and hopefully get some feedback on it. If someone else on…

    2022 · ideas.dynamate.io · its alternatives →

  6. 6IM

    Hi HN! I made a thing and wanted to share it with the builders of HN. Problem: I’ve found it hard/impossible to stay consistent on my side projects over the years with a pretty demanding full-time job and now kids. When the job picks up, it’s too easy to drop the side project for a day, which becomes a week, which becomes months. It’s also been somewhat demotivating to build alone on the side because you only have so much time and projects take so long. In college it was easier to find people to work with. Now, not so much. Solution: I think it’ll be easier to stay motivated and…

    2025 · guildorigin.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7IT

    I created http://devtest.net as a weekend project, and I'm pretty proud of it from a technical and UI standpoint. The problem is, I've built this by myself in a bit of a vacuum, to "scratch my own itch", and I don't know if this is useful to anyone other than me. I'm also not so hot on the business side and don't really know what I'm doing. Basically, I'm looking for some advice, now that I've actually launched, what now? One thing that this has shown me is that I'm capable of putting together a pretty decent web application on my own in my spare time. Should I stick with this idea, or…

    2012 · devtest.net · its alternatives →

  8. 8IM

    just a wack systems dude tbh

    2018 · h313.info · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    I used to be just a blogger. Now I build internet products, still without code, using AI, design, and taste. I was building in public on X for last 2 months. And honestly, I got tired of how it became performative and started to feel fake. I shipped 2 products. Both failed to get any real traction. I kept sneaking into popular builders’ profiles, hoping to learn how they do it. One thing I kept seeing everywhere, product launch directories. I thought here is the scope. So I started building one. Same UI like the rest. Nothing special. Suddenly one day when it was half built, I realized…

    2025 · founderswall.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10CA

    Based on the multiple "Who's hiring remotely?" and similar posts on HN, I thought it might be useful to have a site that aggregates remote programming jobs. There is way too much spam out and an inconsistent way to say "work from home" so traditional searching doesn't work (or rather, takes a long time per person). I've worked in a few remote programming positions so I figured I might know of some companies or searching tricks to find them. Let me know if you'd find this type of thing useful. If we can get some traffic going, then maybe we can start attracting companies to actually list…

    2010 · workfromhomeprogrammingjobs.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Hey HN! For a while I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to find a community for tech bloggers to get together and share what they’re working on, so here’s my attempt at making my own. It’s a completely free website and designed to be super straightforward to use. Functionality wise it’s pretty minimalist right now, with just the ability to register accounts, post drafts, and comment on other user’s posts. Support for more features like tagging post topics, user profiles and more are coming soon! Thanks for checking it out, and I’d love to hear any thoughts from the community. P.S. if you don’t…

    2024 · review.caleb.software · its alternatives →

  12. 12WU

    hey y'all -- can you please tell us if our job search tool sucks? :D we built it using an investor platform called Harmonic.ai to gather startup data, then contextualize it so that job seekers could find out about the most exciting startups hiring first (like if they just raised, growing headcount fast, have an ex-unicorn founder, etc). pretty sure we're the first platform doing anything like this. anyway, let me know what you think. really excited to launch this thing soon! getting feedback from the hn community first is really fun :)

    2022 · joinmaasive.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13MF

    Hi all :) Saturday, I launched my first side project. It's basically a job board for PHP devs. https://php-at.work In the moment, everyone can post a job listing for free. I review it and activate it manually. I would love to hear any kind of feedback :) I posted it already on saturday, but probably it should be better in Show HN section.

    2018 · its alternatives →

  14. 14MS

    linkrdr (www.linkrdr.com), a personal link aggregator, was directly inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555923 I read while browsing on HN. It's still a bit rough, but the concept is an interesting one and people have already shown interest. Let me know what you think. Also, if anyone knows a good UX designer, email me :)

    2012 · its alternatives →

  15. 151P

    A little over a week ago, I was wondering if anyone would care about the thing I’d just built. Let me rewind a bit. I’m a solo indie maker, just like a lot of you. I’ve built so many projects, put in the work, and then… nothing. A few months ago, I launched something I was genuinely proud of on one of the big platforms. I was excited, hopeful. But within hours, it got buried under a pile of other launches. No one saw it. No one cared. That sucked. Not because I expected it to blow up overnight, but because it felt like I never even had a shot. And I kept thinking about how many other indie…

    2025 · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Hello HN! I got pretty overwhelmed with Notion, Trello, etc. (Even though they are great tools!) as an indie dev, so I built an app that is simpler to use and perfectly suited for an indie like me :) You can basically divide your projects into multiple milestones (a milestone could be e.g. a new version), and the milestones can have multiple tasks that are either todo, in progress, or done. The progress for each milestone is calculated with those tasks, and you can also prioritize and categorize the tasks using tags (E.g. for me, #ph turns into "High Priority", and #pm into "Medium…

    2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17IF

    I was wondering whether it’s possible to successfully create a weekend project and if so, with which quality. Here at HN I’ve read many stories of random people (to me they are like teachers) creating “Show HN” projects in 48 hrs which are amazingly awesome and also hit the top site of HN. So here I’m presenting mine: http://keepandplay.com. This is actually not a weekend project, I tried for it to be, but I failed. It actually took me 5 days to have it as it is right now. So I’m still profoundly skeptic on how to realize a 48 hrs side project with the look and feel and quality I…

    2016 · its alternatives →

  18. 18MW

    I created https://foundermeals.com as a weekend project, and as part of an internal competition we do at http://www.freshform.com I love the concept, and I'll be ecstatic if the project is funded and can move forward. But I'm curious if I'm focusing too much on my own insane hunt to find the simplest way to cook, or if that appeals to others. Most people I've told about this respond with, "You're kinda analytical, huh?" or "You think people would pay for that?" or even "...." The thing is, I'm not trying to sell recipes, I'm trying to sell convenience, and I'm not sure I've communicated that…

    2012 · foundermeals.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19FA

    Me and some friends just released a new app. It is matchmaking tool for thinkers and makers. It's a MVP(Native iOS - https://itunes.apple.com/app/id883667173) We would love some feedback on the app before launching and going into the growth state. You can also read more about our vision here: http://www.makemove.se/ Have a nice one!

    2014 · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    I loved this recent "Show and Tell" thread about side projects posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42373343 It inspired me to build a mini directory that aggregates over 500 side projects posted to HN since 2017. You can filter by year, category, or revenue level. Thank you Cursor + Next.js for making this insanely fun to build. Hopefully you discover hidden gems or find inspiration in what the HN community is creating. Happy browsing!

    2024 · hnsideprojects.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21AW

    Hello everyone! I know there are already a few "Who Is Hiring" aggregators, but I wanted to show off what I've done. My project was cancelled right before Christmas, so this project was a great way to blow off some steam while procrastinating looking for a new job. Tangentially, I am looking for new career opportunities if your company needs a full stack web developer, lol. This website was completed in about a week and a half. I wanted to present it in a Show HN post on Jan 2 when the usual Who Is Hiring posts were featured, but I didn't think it had enough features to make it useful. Even…

    2020 · its alternatives →

  22. 22SY

    This is a thread for posting anything cool or interesting you've done lately. I always love seeing what the HN community is up to!

    2013 · its alternatives →

  23. 23GA

    I am announcing the private beta of my first web app (http://getfounder.com). The beta will launch in just one city, which will be determined by the number of entries on the location-aware sign up page. As this is my first public release, I'm looking to the HN community to offer me feedback on what I should/shouldn't be displaying on the homepage. I'd be grateful for any advice you had to offer. Thanks, and I hope to see some of you in the private beta! Colin

    2011 · getfounder.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    I have always found it funny how challenging it can be to find people to jam on side projects with. There are literally entire sub-Reddits where people post looking for someone to work on a project with. That is super inefficient. There are also newsletters for this (also pretty inefficient). Let's Jam is my attempt to solve this. This is NOT a cofounder matching platform. The idea is to connect people with ideas and skills so they can jam on them together. If they end up becoming cofounders, cool, but that is up to them. This is also NOT a place for freelancers to hunt job opportunities.…

    May 2026 · letsjam.live · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →