Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I decided to re-create a mini Google Wave
Even though Wave was killed more than 10 years ago, I didn't fully appreciate its value until recently, when I had to spend a fair amount of time in some group email threads discussing complex subjects. Would using chat instead solve the problem? Not really. In my opinion, chats are great for exchanging quick single-line replies. But to have a real discussion and arrive at a meaningful conclusion, we actually need more structure, not less structure. Which made me realize I wanted a product that worked exactly like Wave, but without some of its annoying features. In my opinion, the real-time…
This product recreates Google Wave, the discontinued collaboration platform, to facilitate structured group discussions on complex topics. It combines the threading and organization of Wave while removing real-time… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I decided to re-create a mini Google Wave launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Shortwave▲299Email smarter & faster with a reinvented Gmail experience
2022 · shortwave.com · its alternatives →
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I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on for the last 2 years. We’re re-inventing the email experience to help you email smarter and faster, so you can get more done, and maybe even actually enjoy your inbox. When we launched Firebase here 10 years ago, HN was tough but fair, and I expect no less this time around! I hope you’ll check out what we’ve built and share your feedback. I’ll be around here all day and am happy to answer any questions. Let us know what you think!
2022 · shortwave.com · its alternatives →
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I got frustrated with Gmail's lack of customization, and built an extension for myself. It doesn't do much other than modify how Gmail is displayed in Chrome. Does it as minimally as possible (that I can engineer). Done locally, zero remote processing. Currently built the following settings (want to add more soon): Conversations: * Show newest message first * Show every message in a thread (sometimes they're collapsed into numbered bubbles) * Remove AI overviews (retches) Layout/UI: * Minimize the search & top bar * Minimize the far left "rail" (Mail/Chat/Meet) * Hide a bunch…
Mar 2026 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →
- 6IM
I recently decided to try out Google Tasks as my only task management system, and while I find some things about the interface great, it really isn't suited for someone like me who has multiple lists with lots of elements on each. So, I whipped this together real fast and I can't imagine using Google Tasks without it anymore. I realized you might want it too, so I put it on the web. Enjoy :)
2011 · gtasker.com · its alternatives →
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This week as we explore the nuances of the "hidden" mobile
2015 · soundcloud.com · its alternatives →
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I hope you are doing better today than yesterday. (TLDR in the comments; or enjoy my story :) ) Why: About 11 months ago, I launched my app for the first time on Reddit's r/lonely because I had previously experienced loneliness myself during grad school. I wanted to reach out to people going through similar experiences by providing them with what would’ve helped me in the past. I felt this was an important mission for me and a much more rewarding one than my day job that I quit my job to work on the app full-time. It was necessary because I did not come from a programming background. I…
2024 · main.d1lmgoealm7rq0.amplifyapp.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! I am developing RelayBeam, to overcome the challenges faced by existing messaging platforms. I've introduced Ports based feature for contextual communication. It organizes conversations based on context through the user-defined ports. I've explained in detail about it with some examples at https://relaybeam.com/about Do try and suggest any more features you'd like to use!
2024 · relaybeam.com · its alternatives →
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Link to test: http://getmeetingsapp.com Basically it is a web-based chat application, with private and public rooms and real-time file sharing. It is currently in a half-arsed situation so needs lot of work but wanted to get some feedback from you. Thanks PS. I created a public room for feature requests, just in case: http://getmeetingsapp.com/rooms/4e7f64ea17ade37b71000002
2011 · getmeetingsapp.com · its alternatives →
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QuickPing▲11I got tired of creating a new email account, or setting up (and paying for) a Google Workspace every time I launched a side project. All I wanted was a link I could put on my site that lets someone send me a message and have a conversation. QuickPing gives you a shareable URL (like quickping.dev/to/yourproject). Someone visits it, types their name, email, and a message. You get notified and reply from a dashboard. They get an email with a link back to the thread. No chat widget, no embed code. Just a link you add to your site. Built with Next.js, Neon, and Mailgun. I'm using it for…
Jul 2026 · quickping.dev · its alternatives →
- 15GA
I started working on this back in 2019, mostly as a design idea. Over the last month I made a big push to make it 100% usable and replace C# in all my personal projects. I now feel it's solid enough to gather feedback from other developers. If you take it for a spin, I hope you enjoy it and send your thoughts!
Jun 2026 · davidobando.github.io · its alternatives →
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So I've been obsessed with a weird question for the past 6 months, what happens to SEO when everyone starts asking ChatGPT for recommendations instead of Googling? The answer, apparently, is chaos. And maybe opportunity? I built FirstClick because I noticed something strange. My previous startup was getting zero traffic from AI assistants, but our competitor (objectively worse product, sorry not sorry) was getting mentioned by Claude and Perplexity constantly. It drove me crazy. So I reverse engineered why. Turns out there's a whole new game being played and most founders don't even know it…
Dec 2025 · firstclick.so · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, it’s Tom & Ana here We’ve created a free plug-in to help run more productive meetings, by plugging directly into the GCal & Google Meet teams can take collaborative notes, set custom agendas and assign action items, as well as connect with other productivity apps - everything in one place! We believe that efficient meetings arise from teams working collaboratively in both synchronous and asynchronous ways - before, during and after the meeting! Please try it out - we would love to hear your honest feedback
2022 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! Few months ago I've shared a new kind of markdown editor that we (a team of three from the Czech Republic) have been working on (HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46144801). What resonated with folks the most was Kraa's unique ‘real-real-time’ chat feature. We have now acted on this feedback, improved the chat features, and made what we call Kraa Trees. Trees allow anyone to create a light-weight community / chat channels. It would be a stretch to call it an alternative to Discord, yet, but we hope that the frictionless nature of Trees will make them…
Apr 2026 · kraa.io · its alternatives →
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- 20TI
Hello HN, I built Teamates.io[0] - a place for professionals to have small coffee chats with a random partner right now. Think of it like a virtual coffeeshop where you can chat with strangers while you're taking a little break. It's in open beta and you can try using it right now. Please be nice and professional to each other :) I noticed over the course of pandemic I missed random coffee chats with my coworkers and random chats with strangers. I think it's important to have these unplanned conversations. I would really appreciate the feedback from you all, since I believe it's a pretty…
2021 · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I'm Martino and I built Showcase to solve a problem my team kept hitting: we'd have these incredibly useful ChatGPT conversations with tons of context built up, but there was no good way to bring teammates in without copying/pasting everything or starting over. What makes it different: Real-time collaboration - Multiple people can chat with AI simultaneously, seeing each other's prompts and responses live 180+ models - Compare responses across Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, and others in the same conversation Rich media support - Upload videos, audio files, PDFs, spreadsheets, code,…
2025 · showcase.thytus.com · its alternatives →
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It has been a while since I have shared my app, that I made to be able to practice my Danish while chatting with my grilfriend - I often used GPT to write as much as I can in Danish, and I replaced the words I didn't know with {Englis words in curly braces}. While this was great, it was rather annoying to type the prompt always, so I figured a GPT wrapper would work well here. Last time when I launched, it went viral! I was super happy (and grateful!) for all the feedback and excitement — but it also meant my tokens disappeared fast, and many people ended up trying an app that no longer…
2025 · menerdu.com · its alternatives →
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MeetWave▲3Your second brain for meetings. See what you missed.
May 2026 · meetwave.io · its alternatives →
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I’ve been using this for my own workflow and friends suggested I share it with them so I quickly threw together my first chrome extension! As an ex-editor, I think chatGPT is overlooked as an editor with everyone jumping straight into writing. Editing is essentially giving it as comprehensive a writing prompt as possible. Playing with the actual prompt also gets you a wide range of different results that grammarly/other apps cant really do. The x% has been changed tool was the first thing I built to see how intrusive chatGPT's editing was at a glance. My biggest struggle was trying to…
2023 · editgpt.app · 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 →