Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1. 1IU
   I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin▲160

   Hi Hacker News, This is definitely out of my comfort zone. I just wanted to show you guys because I'm super proud of it. It's a 100% faithful recreation based off of the schematics, patents, and ROMs that were found online. So please watch the video and tell me what you think https://youtu.be/auOlZXI1VxA The reason why I think this is relevant is because I've been a programmer for 25 years and AI scares the shit out of me. I'm not a programmer anymore. I'm something else now. I don't know what it is but it's multi-disciplinary, and it doesn't involve writing code myself--for…

   Jan 2026 · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Got a Launchpad, but I suck at music. So I built a Tetris for it▲8

   This post is from a protected account.

   2017 · twitter.com · its alternatives →

3. 3
   I vibe coded a DAW for the terminal. how'd I do?▲5

   So, I've never written a line of Rust in my life. I wouldn't know an `&mut this` from a mutandis. But I saw a tweet about a month ago that said, in this new era of AI, you'd be able to just take a library that you love, throw a TUI around it, and call it an app. So I spent about 200 bucks last month, here's what I came up with: Imbolc is a DAW that runs entirely in your terminal. It talks to scsynth over OSC and ships 58 instruments and 39 effects. VSTs are a work in progress, also GarageBand loops if you want to recreate "Umbrella". The codebase is about 60k? lines of Rust across 5 crates,…

   Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   I Built a Sequencer for the Web▲5

   Hey HN! Last week I was working on a website and needed a way to synchronise visuals with live music. I've used MIDI controllers for this before, but I am travelling right now and don't have mine with me. So I had the crazy idea to build a browser extension that uses the keyboard as input and includes a sequencer. I gave myself 24 to work on it. It ended up taking longer (of course), specially since I ended up creating a demo, a small landing, docs, and an intro video. Took me one week from idea to launch (pushed quite a bit tbh). Features: - Works as a browser extension. Atm distributed…

   2024 · minitap.io · its alternatives →

5. 5PP
   Psc: Programmable Synth Controller▲9

   Write up of an embedded project I made to control my analogue synthesizer. Happy to answer any questions or provide any further details of this project if wanted.

   2024 · doug.lon.dev · its alternatives →

6. 6
   The Hacking UI podcast #11 - Turning our side project into a full time gig▲62

   1 month in, and launching The Side Project Accelerator

   2016 · hackingui.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   OpenDeck – Platform for building MIDI controllers▲47

   This is OpenDeck, my own platform for building custom MIDI controllers. I've been working on it for more than 10 years, and now I've made the biggest change so far - rewritten the entire codebase to make use of Zephyr - RTOS with which I've been working professionally for few years now. This now allows me to support many newer boards, complex features and also to modernize the codebase in general. I've been limited on all fronts before. The platform itself allows for simple building and configuring of custom MIDI controllers - main reason for that is because it requires no coding. Load the…

   2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   MIDIpad▲59

   You gamepad is a musical instrument

   Sep 2026 · midipad.stevemitchell.music · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Mine▲6

   A modular Midi controller for DJs, producers and musicians!

   2017 · special-waves.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Write drum patterns, get randomized songs, then just share the URL▲6

    I know mentioning Michael Seibel is almost cheating, but this week he demonstrated the "leaky pipes" concept to me. Not that I know the guy, but in one of his videos he says something on the lines of "If you are unsure if you app is ready to be launched, just launch it. It's like a house with leaky pipes, just open the main, grab your tools, and start fixing wherever water is leaking". So we did it, we launched drummy earlier this week on /r/InternetIsBeautiful and we got very close to 10k users in just one day! Survived the hug of death, learned a ton, and made changes all around.…

    2022 · drummy.io · its alternatives →

11. 11IJ
    I just released my first commercial audio plugin▲7

    Hey all. For the last few years, I have been developing a software synthesizer as a side project. It's taken longer than I both hoped and feared, but earlier this week I finally shipped 1.0. Details about the synth itself are up on my website, https://lhiaudio.com/. For those who are unfamiliar, in music production, there are host applications (such as Logic Pro, Ableton Live, or REAPER) in which most of the work (such as recording or sequencing MIDI data) is done. These applications generally have some built-in tools for the actual generation and processing of audio data, but…

    2018 · its alternatives →

12. 12IB
    I built a WebMIDI sequencer to control my hardware synths▲43

    Hey HN, I’m an ex-Google engineer trying to get back into music production. I needed a way to sequence my hardware synths using AI contexts without constantly switching windows, so I built this. It runs entirely in the browser using WebMIDI. No login required. It connects to your local MIDI devices (if you're on Chrome/Edge) and lets you generate patterns. Tech stack: [React / WebMIDI API / etc]. Link: www.simplychris.ai/droplets Code is a bit messy, but it works. Feedback welcome.

    Dec 2025 · simplychris.ai · its alternatives →

13. 13CC
    Controllers.cc – Compare midi controllers and small keyboards▲8

    2014 · controllers.cc · its alternatives →

14. 14
    I built a web-ready synthesizer using WebAssembly and C++▲6

    2020 · youtu.be · its alternatives →

15. 15
    I built a smart blocker after destroying my dopamine baseline▲20

    I'm a solo dev. A few years ago, I got addicted to Reddit. Spent months in that loop. Being a programmer, I thought I'd be clever. Redirected Reddit's domain to nowhere in my DNS file. Worked great until I'd just... open the file and undo it 20 minutes later. So I made it irreversible. Locked the DNS file so it can't be edited unless I boot my Mac in safe mode. And if I do that, there's a script that instantly locks it again. Haven't used Reddit since last year. Problem solved, right? Wrong. I just replaced Reddit with Twitch and YouTube. Started keeping streams running in the background…

    Nov 2025 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    I built a chill place online to work on your ideas▲6

    I used to watch hundreds of hours of lofi beats on youtube while I was coding, but I got really sick of all the ads. I decided to build a better alternative - It's a configurable space for you to hang out online while you work, with a ton of relaxing music and backgrounds. Its got useful tools built in like a timer to keep track of how long you've been locked in, and a notepad for todos or scribbling down ideas while you work. Honestly this is the first tool I've built that I personally use every day, so I'm hoping some of you out there can get some use out of it too!

    2025 · lofizone.com · its alternatives →

17. 17M2
    MY 24 HACK, just in time for valentines?▲7

    ok...even though im a bit sleepy, i would love to get a lot of feedback from people regarding my website...also what are the ways I can protect myself from hackers in this situation?

    2011 · ilov3u.net · its alternatives →

18. 18
    A 16-control subtractive synth for microcontrollers (39k ELF, web demo)▲6

    This toy retro synth installs and runs on esp32-s3 or p4 as an ELF file under BreezyBox firmware. It uses my work-in-progress immediate mode TUI library in C. Web-based version via emscripten: https://mini000.itch.io/beeper Source code: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/beeper Demo video running on Tanmatsu (esp32-p4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCH9XYZ7QB0 The main challenge I was going for was actually to find a nice minimal set of controls for a subtractive synth. Usually there are 40-50 of them in "simple" synths; I ended up with 16.…

    Jul 2026 · mini000.itch.io · its alternatives →

19. 19
    I've been posting a sound I made everyday day for the last year▲9

    Hi - I'm part composer, part engineer and big fan of reading blogs where people learn out loud or with the garage door up by sharing their notebooks or journals. I've been doing this in Moleskines for years (going back to the 80s) but made it a new year's in 2024 resolution to post SOMETHING everyday, so long as I created the sound. I have a big archive of demos and seeds of ideas, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to do something with those in the process. Being so steeped in programming for the last 30 years, a healty chunk of this material is made via coding with Csound, TidalCycles, some raw…

    2025 · listenfaster.com · its alternatives →

20. 20VI
    Vaxiin – IPMI/iDRAC/OOB software stack▲8

    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 →

21. 21
    I built an open-source alternative to the "brainrot IDE" that YC funded▲6

    VSCode extension with games (Snake, Plinko, slots), HN/LessWrong reader, and Pomodoro timer for AI coding wait times. Fake currency only. Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TouchGra... Built in a week with Claude Code after seeing Chad IDE get ratio'd for integrating real gambling. Happy to answer questions or get roasted on the code.

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

22. 22QM
    QWERTY MIDI – Isomorphic Layout MIDI Controller▲6

    Aug 2026 · beijaflor.io · its alternatives →

23. 23
    I built an encrypted BLE dongle for pasting stuff to air-gapped devices▲5

    Definitely one of those "20 minute adventure gone wrong" projects where all I wanted initially was a quick wireless rubber ducky for bitlocker keys and the like and then I kept adding stuff like AES-256..... Currently working on adding WebAuthn/FIDO support because the hardware is already there and scope creep is a lifestyle at this point. Would love feedback, especially on the security side. Repo and PCB files are fully open source.

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

24. 24IM
    I made a song for your landing page video▲6

    Some of you may know me as a freelance developer and the founder of BugMuncher, but my primary passion in life is actually music. I've recently decided to have a go at making some money from my music by submitting songs to Audio Jungle. So far I've only submitted 2 songs, but both were approved for sale first time, so I guess I'm doing something right :) My second submission is a song I wrote specifically with tech start-ups' landing page videos in mind: http://audiojungle.net/item/introducing-success/3581039 Hopefully it can find a home on someone's landing page :)

    2012 · audiojungle.net · its 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 →