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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

CP

24 alternatives to ca.pitali.st, not a weekend, but afternoon project

Hi hackers, long time reader, first time "real" submitter. This is by no means a revolutionary idea, or even execution, but rather something I've always wanted to do, just to see if I could write a good implementation of it. So without further adieu: http://ca.pitali.st/ Yes, it's just an URL shortener. Please check out the API and if there anything you like about it, please share, so I can take this feedback with me to my future projects. If there's something you REALLY hate, that's feedback too. Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings; this was put together in less than 4 hours to see if I…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. ca.pitali.st, not a weekend, but afternoon project launched in 2011; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1MP

    My first "real" web app! I appreciate any comments/suggestions.<p>Also I am available for hire. Contact me at www.sambolgert.com

    2012 · se.cret.ly · its alternatives →

  2. 2YA

    I must say I was encouraged to post my project here when I saw the positive response to this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3780731 Before you make any comments, please keep in mind that the project is written for fun. I'm not forcing anyone to use it. In fact, nobody should use the current unstable version in a serious project. Here is the link: http://github.com/bsg/libserv Please share your thoughts. All criticisms are welcome, even the harsh ones. p.s. The project is still a work-in-progress.

    2012 · its alternatives →

  3. 3IM

    Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.

    Jul 2026 · its alternatives →

  4. 4VI

    This was submitted before but it didn't seem to get much attention because I don't think the title was very descriptive and the submitter was brand new. I almost didn't click it but once I did I thought the project was pretty awesome and had a lot of promise. Hope this doesn't violate the rules, I have no horse in the game, but the creator is here on the site so hopefully he'll be able to answer your questions.

    2022 · docs.vaxiin.io · its alternatives →

  5. 5MM

    Inspired by the following post by photon_off... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683309 I made karmurl last night. It's a simple app where you submit a URL for feedback, then for every piece of feedback you give to someone else's, you get to read one piece of feedback for yours. http://karmurl.com

    2011 · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Last week I wrote about building a scanner that writes its own exploits. A cron job runs Claude Code every night, it reads new CVEs, writes proof-of-concept checks, tests them against vulnerable and patched Docker instances, and opens PRs. I review and merge in the morning. That post was about how t

    Feb 2026 · attackerview.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7IB

    I built this as a Garage Project over the weekend. https://x402.backpac.xyz/ Still working on refining things, but let me know your thoughts. Cheers.

    2025 · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Hey Hacker News, I'm the maker of Kopage, a free & self-hosted Website Builder. While working on new, cool features (AI, of course), it would be great to hear some HN feedback :) Thanks, Simon

    2024 · kopage.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Well HN, I've finally produced something I think is worthy of sharing, but I didn't do it "in a weekend". Yeah, it's an iOS puzzle game. And yeah, it's a game I built because I wanted to play it rather than based on market research, so all this sort of makes it the antithesis of a popular HN post. But whatever. Still hoping for some of that patented (har har) expert HN feedback. Critique any part of it except the music. Also, PM me for upgrade codes, or I can post some here if there's any interest. Download (it's free):…

    2012 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10MS

    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 →

  11. 11MF

    Hi! Long time reader, first time submitter. I've finallllyy got my first webapp online. It's been a long time coming, I started it over a year ago and just been an hour here, a couple of hours here, and a period of a couple of months of nothing. I first wrote it as a way to learn some python it sort of grew to fill a need I had. It's at a point now where I'd LOVE some feedback as I am going round in circules. Please, it's free, just hit the home page, plugin in a name/email and url you want to links checked on. If you use the name 'DeleteMe' I will remove the account after a week, so feel…

    2012 · sitecrawl.net · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Hi HN! In the last couple of weeks I've been working on Cranki: Cranki = Crosswords + Anki. (It's a stupid name tbh, haha) I like doing crosswords in Spanish (to learn vocab) but none of the apps out there allowed me to use my own list of words that I come across. So I built one instead. It's entirely client-side. No server, no database, no accounts, etc. Your words and stats are stored in local storage. I built this for myself but let me know if you like it!

    Apr 2026 · cranki.app · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Needed this in my own work, anonymizing PII/PHI and decided to build this because presidio didn't really cut it for our use-case. Try it and maybe let me know if you have any feedback :)

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    I spent the past few weeks making an open source cloud code editing environment with an AI copilot and multiplayer collaboration! It's fully self-hostable in 5-10 minutes. There's a lot of minor improvements to be made, and some are already listed in the Github issues. Let me know what you think and feel free to try it out.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15E

    Hello everyone, A couple of months ago I was introduced to Excalidraw and fell in love with it instantly. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't easily save my whiteboards and had to put everything in one whiteboard which started to lag my PC after a while. So I made ExcaliHub. It's exactly as it sounds: a hub for Excalidraw. It's free, open source, and I aim to keep it that way. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

    2024 · excalihub.dev · its alternatives →

  16. 16WW

    Over three months ago, I posted my book on HN and got tremendous +ve reponse. I am happy to inform that I have published the book to leanpub as per the comments I got on HN itself! It is pay as you go model, and the minimum is $0 because I wanted to contribute back to the FOSS Community

    2016 · its alternatives →

  17. 17MW

    From inception Thursday night to near-feature-complete on Sunday morning, I consider it one of my better weekend hacking projects. http://leftright.me/ I built it with node and Redis which was particularly fun. Redis truly is the AK-47 of databases. This project has deeply engrained my longtime hate of Internet Explorer. Everything should be kosher in Chrome and FF but I had to make some compromises for IE. I sent the link to a few friends and the userbase grew from there. It's not much but it's definitely something for having it live for a day. I'm really looking forward to any constructive…

    2011 · leftright.me · its alternatives →

  18. 18
    wsgrok▲7

    I built it for myself because ngrok didn't let me add one more domain unless I paid $12 more. I probably should've looked for alternatives before building my own, but my grudge got in the way . Once I started, I wanted to make it better than the other options. Silly, I know. No one probably cares. I plan to open source it sometime next year because I’ve got other projects to finish first. It's free until I deplete my cloud credits, then it will switch to a tier-based model with a free option.

    Jan 2026 · wsgrok.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19IM

    I'm documenting everything about my process. From learning to code, to building the app, and all the way to my outreach efforts. I'm learning as I go and sharing it with everyone who's not a programer, and is daunted to build a software on their own. Trust me. If I can do it, anyone can! You can find my updates on: https://Claritask.com ...as well as video updates on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmqmifW4kIcPclXigay1dQ Would love to hear your feedback on my progress and if you have any suggestions on what I can do better. There's so many task managers out…

    2017 · its alternatives →

  20. 20SA

    My weekend hack project was to put together a small web app for sharing links in the spirit of memepool.com. It uses a bookmarklet to let people clip interesting articles to share while reading and uses a subset of markdown to add links and blockquotes to posts. It also uses oEmbed to pull in content from popular sites (youtube, slideshare, vimeo, etc) and API integrations to show tweets. It was fun to build - I'd love feedback. Thanks! http://findsignal.com

    2011 · findsignal.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21HM

    I made this as a pair programming exercise with o1-preview. o1 did most of the heavy lifting, through high level prompts, but eventually I needed to diverge from it to get to completion. My initial prompt was: --- I'm making a web app: It's like 4chan, but each thread starts with a gps coordinate. People can only post text and images. I want to build it with flask and sqlalchemy. I want just the backend and data model that supports these threads, anonymous users, and users that can register a permanent username. Write as much of it as you can for me. --- This produced a fully scaffolded…

    2024 · mapchan.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Sup HN, So a couple of months ago I posted my OSINT app ShadowBroker here and got WAY more attention than I expected. Some of the feedback was brutal, but honestly, a lot of it was right, and it made the project a lot better. And sure, I had a blast tracking billionaire jets and yachts or discovering GPS jamming in Ukraine was a thrill, and so was watching CCTV feeds from London, along with ships, satellites, conflict zones, etc., but eventually it dawned on me…where does my OSINT dashboard actually go from there? What good is all of the telemetry if people cannot communicate with each other…

    May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23RM

    I'm trying to come up with a semi-stealth "about" for my newest project. The point is to give a little (clever) insight on the project, but not to give the farm away. Please let me know what you think... "Want to pay $34/month or get roped into a six month contract? We know the perfect match for you. But it's NOT us. Want to answer more than 400 pointless questions? We know a place that can give you such harmony. But it's NOT us. Want to join a site that's all about free and all about flakes? We know a great spot for you to fish. But it's NOT us. AKChances is different. And different is…

    2011 · akchances.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    I couldn't find a CMS that met all my needs, so I built this prototype. It works for my purposes. I'm curious if anyone else finds it interesting or useful. If there's enough interest, I may continue working on it. Feedback welcome!

    2024 · github.com · 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 →