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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

MH

24 alternatives to MonsterLumen helps you brainstorm business problems

Hi Hn, A buddy and I worked on this prototype to see if we could design a system that helps people think creatively. I'd love your feedback, tips and pointers - and yes, I know it's a bit ugly (much css work to be done). Check it out at beta.monsterlumen.com and let us know what you think!

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. MonsterLumen helps you brainstorm business problems launched in 2013; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1IM

    I had this idea rolling around in my head for the last couple of years, and I finally decided to build the damned thing just to get idea relief. The backend is a typical LAMP stack with the Symfony2 framework backing the P. Varnish sits in front of all the Chef managed Linode boxes. The site will work without Javascript (up until the checkout), and the style degrades really nicely depending on your viewport (try it out by resizing your browser). I'm open to all comments and critiques, so let me hear them. And if you are into graphic t-shirts, here is a code for a Hacker News 20% discount:…

    2012 · getnifty.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    How to work and collaborate with developers

    2016 · layout.fm · its alternatives →

  3. 3MS

    linkrdr (www.linkrdr.com), a personal link aggregator, was directly inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555923 I read while browsing on HN. It's still a bit rough, but the concept is an interesting one and people have already shown interest. Let me know what you think. Also, if anyone knows a good UX designer, email me :)

    2012 · its alternatives →

  4. 4YR

    Had this idea recently and just had to get it out of my head and into a (super quick and dirty) prototype. It's like Letterboxd but for anything, and with a simpler rating system you don't have to sweat about.

    2023 · yynn.app · its alternatives →

  5. 5MS

    For years, I have struggled to understand my cash flow and save for the future. In addition to that, my wife has many credit cards and accounts that complicate matters. I am building a tool that connects all our accounts, helps us create a budget, and tracks and adjusts expenses on the fly. I am also sprinkling some AI magic on it for financial suggestions. I am looking for feedback on the implementation. More importantly, I am looking for more beta testers to improve the product.

    2023 · financemadelovely.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Howdy friends! Tell me if this is an atrociously terrible idea - I've been working on building a leetcode for clientside devs so we can practice React and Javascript interview questions in a more concise way, I call it clientside.dev I just finished a beta version of it yesterday and plan on releasing it with many more problems on Jan 1st but it's there if you wanna play with it open to any ideas / feedback however mean or nice it may be :)

    2022 · vacation-call-335691.framer.app · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    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 →

  8. 8

    Hey Hacker News, I'm the maker of Kopage, a free & self-hosted Website Builder. While working on new, cool features (AI, of course), it would be great to hear some HN feedback :) Thanks, Simon

    2024 · kopage.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9AC

    Check out http://swrm.io Basically, we created a feedback platform, and launched it as a tool to allow designers to crowdsource feedback from other designers. The idea is that this tool would allow designers to improve, share knowledge, learn new skills, and consistently deliver their best work. There's a lot that still needs to get done, including making money, letting posts die out after a certain time, and making the site faster by generating image thumbnails. Any feedback would be appreciated and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Feel free to sign up. Thanks!

    2012 · swrm.io · its alternatives →

  10. 10AF

    As a product manager I've used different feedback tools and almost never liked the design and experience of the widget. And pricing of some existing tools is just way too high, at least for indie makers or small businesses ($35 for 100 responses...). That's why I've launched Freddy Feedback (today!). You can find it on www.freddyfeedback.com. Curious to hear your feedback (very meta ;-)).

    2020 · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Howdy friends. I've been a zero to one product manager for 12 plus years and along the way I kept borrowing pieces from different discovery frameworks until I had a methodology of my own, one that actually raises the odds of an idea succeeding. This does not replace user interviews obviously, but it leads you in the right direction. Looking forward for your feedback

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Hi, all I worked on this tool a couple of months. I always had trouble creating a logo for my next project so I decided to automate it. Appreciate any feedback. Cheers, Dan

    2024 · logo-ship.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Hello everyone, I doubt this would be relevant to the kind of person who uses HN, but I thought I could share for some feedback. I built this site because there is a whole world of people who believe in new age spirituality and I am very much one of them. It is a site where you get the users gender their goals and their images and use AI and psychology to generate images of them in the process of achieving their goals. I am so deeply struggling with how to get this highly on Google. I don't even know if that is important anymore. What are your suggestions with distribution and getting in…

    2025 · visionboardsai.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14SF

    I have ignored high paying jobs/ several contracting gigs to build Xervmon.com. I would really appreciate help to test the UI for UX. I want folks who can be brutal about the tool and give a feedback on which we can improve the UI and UX. The UI does standout, but to what level it stands out, I am not sure. One catch : You need to sign up to navigate through UI. First I was shy to show my work, then angry and upset when users commented and now am shameless. Be my guest and give me feedback so I can take it as another challenge to improve the user experience.

    2012 · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Give and get instant programming help.

    2016 · its alternatives →

  16. 16NF

    Hi, I spent the last couple of months developing OurClubFundraiser(http://www.ourclubfundraiser.com) and launched it about two weeks ago.I would love to get some feedback from the HN community on how I could improve the site and tweak the concept. Since launching I have found that: 1) I am not getting enough visits(Average around 5 a day) 2) Any of the visits I do get are not converting. I am working on 1) and will hopefully be able to dramatically increase the number of visits over the next few weeks. I could really do with some third party perspectives on point 2. 1)Is the concept not…

    2012 · ourclubfundraiser.com · its alternatives →

  17. 171R

    I wanted to find a product idea to build. "Build things people want," right? So I thought, why not literally find people saying what they want? I wrote a script to collect thousands of Reddit posts where people are looking for a solution or complaining about a problem. Then I used GPT to filter out the noise and score each one based on how viable the idea seemed. Threw together a simple search interface so anyone can explore them. I was planning to build a more advanced paid version of this, but figured I'd share the raw version first to see if it's actually useful to anyone.

    Nov 2025 · search.reddit-business-ideas.workers.dev · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Your design stories, inspiration, whats on the market & more

    2016 · its alternatives →

  19. 19IB

    I had an idea for this concept for a while and decided to build a little website around it. It's kind of a silly idea but I'm really curious to see how it plays out. If you're a particularly curious person, be warned. By submitting a payment to the game, you get to see how many other people were curious enough to play. You will be ranked based on your payment amount, and get to discover some interesting insights about the game's dynamics. Hope you like it

    2024 · thecuriositygame.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20MA

    Hi there, So a buddy a couple of days ago came up with the idea for a new SaaS product regarding gpt and image generation. We did a quick MVP that barely works, it breaks almost 50% of the time but we still wanted to validate the idea before going all in. We have almost 1k followers on Twitter together. Did a quick post describing the idea with a stripe link in the comments with a 5$ value, no landing page, and no shipped product. In exchange, the buyers become beta users. Around 30 mins later we got our first sale next 30 mins another 5$ and so on. Do we consider the idea validated? The…

    2023 · its alternatives →

  21. 21IC

    After 6 months looking for an idea, procrastinating and over analyzing what I should build. I built a tool that allows people to find problems using custom plugins built with Grok and Claude.

    2025 · gotaprob.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    I am working on this because I am always afraid of building things that people don't actually want. I let agents role-play analysis the idea, quote and debate with each other. Still working on the output quality, every feedback is priceless. Pls try it out!

    Jan 2026 · idea-council.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23AW

    I have a YouTube channel (rithmic) that helps people to learn how to code. I have built this job board for them. Let me know your thoughts...

    2024 · webdevjobs.io · its alternatives →

  24. 24GP

    As a front-end engineer that worked in multiple product teams, there are a lot of discussions between PM/Designers/Engineers made to ensure everyone's aligned before features/fixes are shipped. I'm building a tool to make this process easier, so teams can ship faster. Ditch the screenshots/screen recordings, and simplify communication in a single tool. Got some features in mind, but I wanted to get some thoughts from the HN community. Thanks for checking it out! Happy to answer any questions.

    2022 · pageblox-app.vercel.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 →