Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I finally relased my first product
So, after many years of kicking about little apps and not putting the full effort in, I decided to bite the bullet and get on with it. Very much inspired by patio11 and Bingo Card Creator, I present Griddol (http://www.griddol.com) a tool to create and play word searches. Intended mainly for teachers, but encouraging those who like a word search too. This been churning around in my head for over a year in various forms, and I used the concept to help learn CoffeeScript, CouchDB and node.js, so even if the product itself is a failure, the learning process has been valuable. I'll be the first…
Griddol is a web-based tool for creating and playing word searches. Designed primarily for teachers but open to word search enthusiasts, it allows users to generate custom puzzles and solve them online. The creator… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I finally relased my first product launched in 2011; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1

Hey, maker here. After launching a daily word search game, I randomly thought of this math game while driving. Finally got around to making it and I think it turned out pretty cool. It’s a math search game that’s meant to help you practice your quick addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. I’m hoping it’ll help people (even those like me who aren’t big on math) learn and increase their speeds. (There are also some settings you can enable to make the game harder) If you try it out, please let me know if you found it fun, if you have anything you’d like me to add, or if you…
2024 · worchle.com · its alternatives →
- 2

Hey, Jared Palmer (creator of this playground) here. Really excited to ship this. I’ve been building this over the past few weeks to compare LLMs from different providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, etc. At Vercel, I manage our Frameworks division (including Next.js, Svelte, and Turbo) and wanted to also dogfood some of the latest features in a slightly larger application. This playground takes a lot of inspiration from https://nat.dev and is built on Tailwind, ui.shadcn.com, and some upcoming Vercel products we’re announcing soon. We’re going to continue adding models to…
2023 · play.vercel.ai · its alternatives →
- 3SA
Hi HN, I was late to wordle, so I am also late to making my own version. In Spindle, you rotate words on a grid with the aim of assembling the day’s target word. I enjoy it, so I thought some of you might enjoy it too. From a tech perspective, it’s a very simple Laravel / Livewire app. My happy place in recent years has been Typescript and SvelteKit, so this was a bit of an adjustment, but it allowed me to take advantage of an existing shared hosting server meaning no additional financial outlay. Happy to report a positive experience with PHP and this framework, although I do miss…
2023 · playspindle.com · its alternatives →
- 4

- 5FS
Hi HN! This started late last year as an afternoon project to play around with ElasticSearch, and then I kept thinking of new features I wanted to add. I still have a lot of things I want to build, but now seemed like a good time to put it out there: even if the results aren’t nearly the quality I’d like, I’ve still found it useful and I want to show it off! I’ve been working on it since September 2021, but only in fits and starts. The entire thing runs on a computer in my living room (there’s a picture on the About page); I haven’t done any load testing so we’ll see how it holds up.
2022 · search.feep.dev · its alternatives →
- 6AS
Hello HN! I've been playing a lot with https://hyperscript.org/ recently (not to be confused with the other hyperhype hyperscript). I threw together a quick Wordle clone in an evening to see what it would look like using this language. The main functionality that is missing is checking for invalid words. The word dictionary is also very small, so it's very easy. The goal here wasn't really to create a good version of Wordle, it was to build 80% of Wordle in a different language to see what it looks like. Turns out, it looks pretty good! Stuff like using CSS rule precedence to…
2022 · arhamjain.com · its alternatives →
- 7

I built a procedurally generated word-search game where the puzzle never ends - as you scroll, the grid expands infinitely and new words appear. It’s designed to be quick to pick up, satisfying to play, and a little addictive. The core game works without an account using the pre-defined games, but signing up allows you to generate games using any topic you can think of. I’d love feedback on gameplay, performance, and whether the endless format feels engaging over time. If you try it, I’d really appreciate any bug reports or suggestions. Thanks in advance!
Dec 2025 · endless-wordsearch.com · its alternatives →
- 8

I built this out of frustration as I lead the development of AI features at Yola.com. Prompt testing should be simple and straightforward. All I wanted was a simple way to test prompts with variables and jinja2 templates across different models, ideally somthing I could open during a call, run few tests, and share results with my team. But every tool I tried hit me with a clunky UI, required login and API keys, or forced a lengthy setup process. And that's not all. Then came the pricing. The last quote I got for one of the tools on the market was $6,000/year for a team of 16 people in a…
2025 · langfa.st · its alternatives →
- 9
Word Slicer▲85I shared Word Slicer here a while back — it’s a free, ad-free, browser-based word game where you try to find 5 words in 5 minutes. Since then I’ve been improving it (daily challenge archive, cleaner UI, better stats), and I’d love more feedback from the HN crowd. In particular, I’m interested in thoughts on the gameplay flow, design/UX, and what would make it more engaging.
2024 · wordslicer.com · its alternatives →
- 10SL
When I was getting into web development I used a combination of Anki and git to help me quickly learn and retain skills. Figuring there might be demand for a product that uses the same strategy (without the requirement that you already know Anki and git), I created SkillPress. No account is needed to start learning. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions.
2022 · app.skillpress.io · its alternatives →
- 11KA
Knit was created to solve pains of other LLM playgrounds. Some of the highlights: - Smart prompt builder, create prompt with simple requirement and few shot learning, fast and effortlessly. - Function call simulation, visualize the function callings and you can also setup a mocked value to return. - Support OpenAI/Anthropic/Azure models. - Manage prompts with projects and members. - And so much more! I have been developing Knit by myself for over 4 months now, and am looking for ways to improve it. Any feedback is appreciated.
2023 · promptknit.com · its alternatives →
- 12IB
Hey all! I wanted to share this project I've been working on that can maybe help you or your developer friends out. I built a RAG system for our product a while back and didn't realize how easy they were to get started. So I put together my learnings into this online course. It's not quite ready but if you sign up and mention HackerNews, I can get you early access. I'm looking to get feedback on the following: (1) materials — is it engaging & did you learn something? (2) UI/UX of the platform — did you have any issues that prevented you from starting or finishing the tutorial? (3)…
2024 · takehomes.com · its alternatives →
- 13

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 →
- 14WP
2010 · japanese.trydionel.com · its alternatives →
- 15

- 16

I love the Wordle game, but one puzzle a day feels way too slow if you're actually trying to get better. So I built wordles.org - a simple unlimited Wordle practice site. It also has one extra thing I always wished the original had: you can create your own 4–10 letter word and share a link so friends can guess it. I'm not sure if people actually want a practice tool like this or if I'm just the kind of person who plays 10+ rounds a day. Curious what others think: Is unlimited Wordle useful or just noise? Are custom puzzles fun or annoying? If something feels off, tell me straight. I'd rather…
Nov 2025 · wordles.org · its alternatives →
- 17SM
- After starting and quitting so many times, I finally decided to start small project and created SuggetMeLearn - This is my first ever attempt to a complete web application - The idea is to - let people suggest the way they learnt a particular language or technology - let people seeking to learn decide based on the suggestion to pick resources and start learning rather than browsing through infinite search results. - people can vote if they think they also believe that a particular suggestion is a great resource(and suggestions are sorted by votes) - All suggestions are welcome. - URL :…
2012 · suggestmelearn.appspot.com · its alternatives →
- 18

I got the idea of [mindmap.so](http://mindmap.so/) out of my own frustration of managing my personal notes in Notion and Miro in parallel. I have built it 3 months back on top of excalidraw, posted it in Reddit a couple of times, and never looked back (was using it only for personal use). Little did I know that the small and nimble tool that I created has crossed 2000+ users (was so surprised when I saw the dashboard last week). It was all organic and word of mouth . Having 2000+ users trusting a product is no easy feat. That’s when I thought may be I should put some more…
2024 · mindmap.so · its alternatives →
- 19
Wordbulb▲3Hey HN, I’ve been building a few SaaS products over the last couple of years, and in between larger features I sometimes build small tools to reset my brain. This started as one of those. It’s called WordBulb: https://wordbulb.com/word-cloud-generator At first, it was just a simple word cloud generator. But while building it, I kept thinking: why are most word clouds basically just decorative images? They look interesting, but they’re not useful. So I decided to make it interactive and embeddable — where every word can have its own target link. What it does Add your own words…
Aug 2026 · wordbulb.com · its alternatives →
- 20

Hi Everyone, I recently wanted to learn Japanese with duolingo but it kept giving me repetitive lessons. So I built an app that gives a variety of lessons from anime. You can try it out here:https://kanjieight.vercel.app/ Thanks everyone.
Nov 2025 · kanjieight.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 21MF
HN, I would appreciate some feedback on my first coding project ever. It's a visual instant search for iTunes (using Apple's API) I consider it MVP at this point, some features are still missing. I've tested the site in Safari, IE, and Firefox, and it seems to work in all of them. http://38069.vs.webtropia.com/tester/test/ (not too fancy of a URL) My background is nowhere near coding or designing (English major in the making, quite sure my code shows) and I only knew some basic PHP going into this last week, so don't be too harsh. Why this idea? I strongly believe visual search will be…
2011 · 38069.vs.webtropia.com · its alternatives →
- 22

Hey HN! I've always loved beautiful words. I also enjoy coming up with fun names for all the side projects and businesses that I'm working on, trying to find something unique with an available .com. After spending countless hours brainstorming names for different stuff, I built Spellsurf. It lets you explore words and combine their syllables to create new ones. You can also set rules for the generated words, making it easy to search for names that fit what you're looking for. People say to open a dictionary to a random page when you're looking for ideas. Spellsurf is like that, just a bit…
Jul 2026 · spellsurf.com · its alternatives →
- 23WA
Hi Hacker News, I'm excited to share a project I've been working on: a web-based word learning app designed to help you effortlessly expand your vocabulary. If you're learning a new language, especially German, this might be just what you need. What is it? This is a straightforward web application that leverages browser notifications to remind you of new words throughout the day. You upload a CSV file with your vocabulary list, and the app takes care of the rest. The notifications will pop up at intervals, displaying words and their translations to keep you engaged and learning. The CSV can…
2024 · word2go.netlify.app · its alternatives →
- 24

Hi HN I built a fun little tool: It uses Groq’s LLaMA 3.3 + Puppeteer to analyze a website Then it roasts the design/content/UX with humor And finishes with 3–5 genuinely helpful improvement tips You can try it here: https://ai-roast-vert.vercel.app I wanted to: Practice fast idea-to-launch cycle (built in 2 days) Experiment with a viral-friendly product Monetize with a $0.55 pro version that gives a detailed roast + download Would love your feedback — on the idea, the tone, the usefulness — anything! Thanks in advance
2025 · ai-roast-vert.vercel.app · its alternatives →
Also compare
- I made a web game that makes practicing basic arithmetic fun alternatives
- AI Playground by Vercel Labs alternatives
- Spindle, a cross between Wordle and a Rubik's Cube made in PHP alternatives
- Word Webs alternatives
- Feep! search, an independent search engine for programmers alternatives
- A simple Wordle clone in 60 lines, using Hyperscript alternatives
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 →