Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I'm 35 and couldn't finish reading articles anymore, so I built this
Hey HN, the full story is on the page, but here's the TL;DR: I'm 35 and somewhere along the way I lost the ability to finish reading articles. I'd open them, read 2-3 paragraphs, get distracted, and close the tab feeling like a failure. My "Read Later" list became a graveyard of 2,000+ unread articles. I tried everything – focus apps, reader modes, blocking extensions. Nothing worked. Then I realized. 'maybe the problem isn't me'. Modern web articles are designed for engagement metrics, not comprehension. Sidebars, popups, related articles, comment sections – everything is optimized to pull…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1
Clearly▲177A simple, distraction free reader for Chrome
2018 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →
- 2
A simple article reader for the web
Feb 2026 · justthearticleplease.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Hey HN, maker here. It was a serious 4-6 months of effort to build this. I have never poured as much love, attention and detail into a project before. So I really appreciate you having a looksie! The homepage has a fresh list of articles every hour and is open to all. Still, I recommend signing up so you can add stuff to your reading list and follow blogs. My initial plan was to monetize this with subtle ads, but that didn't work out as the traffic to the site isn't nearly enough for that. That said, I have a fair bit invested in this and I need your help figuring out a way to make this…
2023 · boredreading.com · its alternatives →
- 4BM
Hey HN crowd! Two days ago I realized I'm almost unable to read a book or a long article without getting distracted by Twitter/HN/Reddit/Work. The situation is so terrible, I'm even getting afraid of big articles, and my ReadItLater list is getting pretty long (shameful I know) ... and I'm pretty sure most of you are in this situation :) Being used to TL;DRs on long reddit posts, I thought it would be great to have these for everything, so I quickly hacked this website: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ Here is an example of TL;DR: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy I would love to…
2011 · too-long-didnt-read.com · its alternatives →
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- 8
Turn YT videos with chapters into courses & track progress
2023 · chapters-queue.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 9
An awesome solution for those with too many Chrome tabs open
2014 · tabsoutliner.com · its alternatives →
- 10
ReadingNotes▲10Your read-for-me agent for X bookmarks, emails & articles
Apr 2026 · readingnotes.ai · its alternatives →
- 11
I built Read Fast after realising I was saving hundreds of things to read and reading almost none of them. It automatically turns saved content into a scheduled briefing and sends it to my inbox at whatever time I choose. New version since last post actually allows you to bulk upload URLs. So you can just dump links here and Read Fast will scrape and brief for you. Great for actually reading the things I want to. Curious if that resonates with people?
Dec 2025 · read-fast.replit.app · its alternatives →
- 12
I struggle with wanting to read heaps of stuff I come across on the internet daily, as well as being subscribed to a bunch of tech-related newsletters that I never get around to reading. I made this to get through that content much faster while working or otherwise multitasking. Check it out and please lmk your thoughts! Also, curious if others also feel this pain of too much interesting content to get through daily. FWIW I probably listen to this for >1 hour daily atm.
2024 · lavalamp.ai · its alternatives →
- 13T
HN, With an overwhelming amount of tech news being reported every day - I have always struggled to find the time to read the articles, even when I want to. So I created a solution for myself where I extract key points of the articles and present them as bullet points, for readability. I figured others might be feeling the same way, so I am making it available publicly. I update it every hour. I would really appreciate any suggestions on improvement. I look forward to hearing your thoughts/feedback. URL: https://techbullets.com
2015 · its alternatives →
- 14
ThinkTotem▲12Hi HN, I love reading non-fiction, but I kept catching myself skimming, zoning out, and forgetting most of what I’d “read”. To fix that I built ThinkTotem, a small web app that lets you upload a PDF/EPUB/article/YouTube link and then chat with the material until you actually understand it. What it does - Ingests PDFs, EPUBs, Word docs, plain-text URLs and even YouTube transcripts (≤ 4 MB for now) - Maps key ideas, trims filler and surfaces the essential concepts automatically - Runs an active-recall loop: Socratic questions, explain-it-back prompts, spaced-repetition style…
2025 · thinktotem.com · its alternatives →
- 15AW
Hey, I've made a pdf reader with ai assistance, you can quickly ask questions about the text and the images, and it will have context about all of your reading material so you can ask questions freely, try it now, I'm in open beta to find bug and get feedback. upcoming features: - Highlighting - Highlighting with Notes - Bibliography - Automatic Reference file opening - Improved UX and robustness currenlty alot of bugs so please let me know if you found any. feedback appreciated
2025 · pdf-hub.com · its alternatives →
- 16
A small, calm reader. Save what you find. Read one good essay a day.
Jul 2026 · wereadit.com · its alternatives →
- 17
My wife recently started her PhD and while she uses Zotero as a citation manager, she was really missing a tool for keeping track of what she's reading right now/has already read/needs to read next. This overwhelming experience might be familiar to other researchers working on a niche field where every paper is called pretty much the same thing So I built her Paperstack. It's basically Goodreads, but for research papers: - Save articles to familiar To Read/Reading/Read stacks - Tag articles with logical projects/chapters/whatever your system is - Get…
Jan 2026 · paperstack.ac · its alternatives →
- 18BA
Hey guys, I drive to work a lot, spending on average of 2 hours each day. So I have plenty of time to listen to Podcast and audiobook on my ride. And I think it would be nice to be able to do the same with my reading list, but I couldn't find any decent app on the market that doing this. So I set out to do it myself. Sooo this is the product: http://sendtopod.com/ You may ask why? The reasons are simple: - It's more convenient to listen to articles while you driving, running, or even before going to bed. - Listen take less effort than reading. - Your eyes need to rest after…
2022 · sendtopod.com · its alternatives →
- 19ON
I’ve always wanted a news app designed for people who don’t stay up-to-date daily. That pays attention to when I check-in and what stories I’m aware of and adapts to me. You see, I’m not a good “follower” of the news, and I “catch-up” fairly infrequently. When I do, I want to see the most important things I’ve missed in the meantime, not today’s top stories. I’d like to emerge from my metaphorical cave after a week, a month, or longer, and quickly see what I missed. That’s Old News. I built it for myself, but if you’re like me (statistically, you probably aren’t!) you may like it too. It is…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 205A
Hey everyone! I wanted to share a project that I've been working on the last few days that I finally finished last night: https://50books.org This is a simple site designed to track your reading list into 2015. My personal goal is to read 50 books this year, and I wanted to hold myself accountable. Major sites like Goodreads are great, but were too much of a social network for my personal taste; on the other hand, using a text file (which was my 2014 solution) was too difficult to track and share. I built https://50books.org using Sinatra, sqlite3 (via datamapper), and…
2015 · its alternatives →
- 21TL
I was tired of having to constantly scramble to find a podcast I want to listen to when going for a walk or just running on the treadmill. I, however, usually have an abundance of blog posts or articles around the web that I'd like to read. The problem is walking is not very conducive to reading. So I made this quick and dirty site that pretty much works anywhere, no app install, no copy paste, no nothing. Just add the domain playthis.link before any URL in your browser and hit enter. It will redirect to an audio file that automatically starts playing. You don't need to click a 2nd button to…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 22
On my new large screen, it was a little cumbersome to read PG's essays because they are sticking so far off to the left. I center aligned it so it's a bit more readable. Took 2 hours with chatgpt to ideate, build, and publish.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23IB
This site was born out necessity. I needed a break from the internet we know today: clickbait, politics, low quality content, breaking news, AI summaries Such a breadth of information but so little depth Now I spend (too much of) my time here, going deep. Just when I need to scratch that itch. But I keep coming back because it actually makes me a better engineer. Oh, and I made the site. Right. Anyways, I hope you enjoy crawling the blogs as much as I have. Enjoy! And PLZ reply with any feedback. I am here to make this site better. It will always be free.
2025 · codecrawl.co · its alternatives →
- 24
Eyeball▲7Sharing something that I’ve been working on: I made a save-later app for all my bookmarks. I save links throughout the week and, every Sunday morning, the app sends me a personalized recap with: -patterns and themes that connect my week to my broader interests -a nudge toward links I saved but never revisited -one reflective question to help me decide what else might be worth exploring I was inspired by older read-later apps like Instapaper. I wanted to make something minimalist, so it’s just a simple feed of your links (with tags and annotations linked to each link) and it is set up to…
2025 · tryeyeball.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 →