Growth · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Hacker News Lite – I made a less distracting version of HN
Sometimes UI can be distracting and I’ve found that I’m most focused when able to focus completely on the content on a page. I built HN Lite as a chrome extension to hide all information that isn’t vital to see. It removes excess navigation, usernames, saving/reporting features, upvotes, voting tools, account access, and styling. Essentially it’s a lurker’s tool. Almost entirely built around content consumption and exploration. Although it desperately needs dark mode.
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Hacker News Lite – I made a less distracting version of HN launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
HN is great for the links people share, but a big part of the value I get comes from reading the discussion around them. I realized I was always opening the article in one tab and the comments in another, constantly switching back and forth. I figured there was probably a simpler way, so I threw together this userscript to merge the two. 1. Clicking a link from Hacker News opens the article with a side panel containing the discussion. It doesn't require your credentials, is resizable, and is easy to tweak if you want to customize it. 2. If you land on an article that has previously been…
Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Hey HN, I made this free browser extension that modernizes the Hacker News design. I previously launched Modern for Wikipedia [1] here back in December, and it seemed like the obvious next choice to build one for HN too! So I've taken what I learned from building that, and have spent all my spare time this year building Modern for HN. I realize this won't be for everyone, but it was a fun project to work on, and I'm really happy with the result so far. Hope you like it too! Lots more planned for future updates, and suggestions welcome :) [1]…
2022 · modernhn.com · its alternatives →
- 3
2013 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 4
A beautiful, clean, modern web UI for Hacker News
2022 · modernhn.com · its alternatives →
- 5
✨ Hacker News, but refined — Interface tweaks and features to make the HN experience better - plibither8/refined-hacker-news
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6HN
Hello everyone! This is a browser extension that attempts to enhance Hacker News user experience, while your data is kept secure, and private (never leaves the browser). Browsers have evolved significantly since doing a v1 back in 2010, which was one of the contributing factors, for attempting a complete re-take few months ago. Personally, I was surprised how useful it turned out to be when browsing around HN. On the linked page you can find install link(s) from web-browser stores, and demo video/screenshots of the features[1] What do you think ? [1] including, browsing content with…
2023 · carina.app · its alternatives →
- 7HS
2013 · gabrielecirulli.github.io · its alternatives →
- 8IB
2020 · hn.luap.info · its alternatives →
- 9
I've been working on and off on a Chrome Extension for Hacker News, the extension focusses on improved usability rather than design. I can almost guarantee that after a day you won't want to go back to regular Hacker News. Give it a try, features include: - Improved readability - Quick inline replies from comments page - Quick profiles with social network info when hovering over usernames - Filtering of stories based on terms and phrases / domain or user - Endless scrolling - Collapsible comment threads - Social sharing for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Buffer Forks, improvements and comments…
2012 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 10
Hi! I’m Julien and I built a recommendation engine for Hacker News. I feel like this website is a gold mine. Every day, I find some very interesting stories about a topic. And sometimes, I want to find other stories covering that same topic but I can’t. Hacker News has years of history of awesome discussion and ressources. Unfortunately, I think HN Algolia isn’t helpful in searching these old threads. As a student, I want to learn a lot from this website. This is why I created HN Recommend. Input a sentence or the URL of an article, and get the most popular and similar posts from Hacker…
2023 · hn-recommend.julienc.me · its alternatives →
- 11
I love HN but always felt the search with algolia is okay but does have some limitations. Since I work at Vectara I decided to try and create a better search for HN. It's based on data from roughly the last 6 months of HN stories and comments. Would love to hear feedback and how useful this is relative to the existing search.
2024 · hackernews.demo.vectara.com · its alternatives →
- 12
- 13FH
Hey HN. I created this website. https://pj4533.com/hn-overlooked/ It's just a simple web app that discovers overlooked posts on Hacker News. I created it because I was often coming to Hacker News and realizing that I was missing a lot of stuff, and there just didn't seem to be an easy way to surface content that was interesting to me but just didn't bubble up to the top of the page. So I built this. I got the idea a while back, one night when I was recording (you can watch it here, it's pretty funny: https://youtu.be/FDyDb4sX30w?si=E3rby-DaGWA6gy0R ). But I…
2025 · pj4533.com · its alternatives →
- 14
I have a dedicated HN tab that I come back to and reload multiple times a day to see whats new and hot. I wrote a Chrome Extension to: - quickly scan new articles since my last reload - quickly scan highly discussed articles - open actual articles and discussions in a new tab This links to the source code. The chrome extension is linked at the bottom of the github page. Note: - This extension only operates on the HN front page (https://news.ycombinator.com/news) - The first time you reload the HN front page after installing the extension all articles will get highlighted.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
A chrome extension that applies a stylesheet to Hacker News' frontpage. - guicoelho/hn-beautify
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Browser extension that toggles an opinionated dark theme for the popular website, Hacker News. - azerella/ext-hn-darkmode
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17
It's been 2 years since the initial release [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36102610). The initial version was a very basic prototype which was not available anywhere beyond the GitHub repo. You had to install it as a userscript or load the extension manually. Since then, it remained simple but better, new features include: - Improved accuracy by also using comments to help gauge the topic of discussion and the right keywords. - Published as plugin for more browsers: Chrome, Firefox (including android), and more recently Microsoft Edge. - Support for narrow screens…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Hi All, since I am consistently overwhelmed with all the all the ai/gpt news on the hn front page I built this simple extension to filter out such articles and show them on the extension popup if I'm in the mood to read. I am interested in the topic but just tired of reading the similar discussions (local models, llama on mac, ai taking away our jobs, etc) all the time. Every few days I search for topics on hn.algolia.com and go over any exciting development. Ironically, since this was the first time I built an extension chat-gpt helped build 90% of the extension since . Also once…
2023 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Do you ever get tired of all the noise on HN? Contribute to mathiasrw/no-noise-hacker-news development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20
Hey HN, I made this tool after I read a pretty interesting pg essay - http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html He talks about changing some HN usernames' colors to orange and then deciding to revert back So I thought it could be interesting to remove usernames entirely. This Chrome Extension just replaces HN usernames with question marks. I've enjoyed using it so far myself and I'm curious what you think about the concept?
2022 · hackerwhos.com · its alternatives →
- 21
Alerts, AI summaries, and easy search for Hacker News
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 22
2011 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
- 23
Hacker News blocklist extension for Chrome. Contribute to morgante/hn_blocklist development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
2014 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
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- I made a modern web UI for Hacker News 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 →