nowfound

Alternatives

Products that do what My new SaaS side-project, after years of open source does

Hi guys, I've created an open source web builder framework (https://grapesjs.com) years ago, which I'm still maintaining, and now I'm excited to publish a side project based on it, Grapedrop (https://grapedrop.com). It's a simple web page builder which allows you to design and publish your web pages very quickly. The project is still in beta with a lot of stuff to improve but I'd really like to share it and hear what people think about it and maybe also get some constructive feedback.

  1. 1SP

    Several years ago, I had a client whose salespeople were using Excel to generate sales proposals. This was inefficient and the resulting documents looked awful, so I developed a new process for them using a no-code platform. It featured a web form that was tied to a workflow engine, and a fancy PDF got emailed to the customer to sign. When the client loved the solution, I knew I was on to something. However, the no-code platform wasn't very customizable, so I decided to rebuild the process as a SaaS product. The client's CTO wanted in and we became cofounders. Today, we passed the…

    2021

  2. 2SC

    Have been working on this for months, hope you guys will like it. Feel free to share your own side project in the comments.

    2012 · sideprojects.com

  3. 3GF
  4. 4
    Grapedrop156

    Free, responsive, web page builder for your next project

    2018

  5. 5
    GrapesJS163

    Open Source tool for building web templates without coding.

    2016

  6. 6IO

    Hi HN, I'm Mohammed, a technical founder who loves shipping and giving back to the community. I'm open-sourcing the full-stack engine that powers my B2B product, apflow.co. What it is: A production B2B starter with a Go backend and Next.js frontend. Both are fully Dockerized with separate containers. No Vercel. No Supabase. Deploy the whole thing on a $6 VPS, or split frontend and backend across different providers. You own the infrastructure. The problem I was solving: Every SaaS starter I evaluated had the same issue: they locked me into someone else's platform. Vercel for hosting.…

    Dec 2025 · github.com

  7. 7IV

    For the last several years I've been creating a ERP platform, Stockor. While I'm going to continue offering it as a SaaS, I've decided to also open-source it. I'm hopeful that by doing so it will: 1) Grow it into a Wordpress size juggernaut with a plugin for any business process under the sun. 2) Bring me interesting consulting gigs. The open-source site is at stockor.org. There's a demo up at stockor.com/demo as well. Looking forward to hearing HN's thoughts!

    2014

  8. 8IM

    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

  9. 9MF

    Promptly is my first SaaS Project. I built it because I wanted to refine my dev skills and also to have a central place to store my prompts for GPT, Midjourney, and other AI platform and systems. Would love some feedback on the website itself, as well as advice on how I should go about the marketing

    2023 · promptly.host

  10. 10V0

    I launched Open SaaS about a year and a half ago and surprisingly it’s become one of the most popular free SaaS boilerplate starters on github (https://github.com/wasp/open-saas). After 2 years of work total, I’m pleased to launch what I’m calling “Open SaaS v2.0”. Here’s a breakdown of all the features and updates I’ve made to it over time: * New Big, Shiny Things for v2.0 * - Complete redesign with Shadcn UI for a modern and consistent look (themeability coming soon...). - Script that autogenerates an LLM-friendly version of the documentation…

    2025 · opensaas.sh

  11. 11IM

    I'm documenting everything about my process. From learning to code, to building the app, and all the way to my outreach efforts. I'm learning as I go and sharing it with everyone who's not a programer, and is daunted to build a software on their own. Trust me. If I can do it, anyone can! You can find my updates on: https://Claritask.com ...as well as video updates on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmqmifW4kIcPclXigay1dQ Would love to hear your feedback on my progress and if you have any suggestions on what I can do better. There's so many task managers out…

    2017

  12. 12IB

    Hey, just wanted to share with you guys and app that I built and deployed in a day with Lovable. So, as a founder I always wanted to have an advisor but my budget would always be less, then on the other hand hand I had Paul's essays on Startup Advice, which I never read because I was busy building stuff. Hence, I built this product which comes into a sweet spot of both at the same time being more reasonable and capable than the alternative. ps: it's running on a reasoning model and tbh I've been able to gather pretty good insights from it. Note to PG: If you're seeing this. I'm your big fan.…

    2025 · paulgraham.resurrect.space

  13. 13MF

    After a month of diving into Next.js for the first time, I built a cool app that helps SaaS founders connect with users, tweak their offerings, and boost revenue. You can easily add feedback forms to your website to gather and analyze customer feedback whenever you want. It has a 30-second setup, requires no coding, and is compatible with WordPress, etc. Tell me, guys, what do you think, knowing I'm just a beginner?

    2024 · feedyourback.com

  14. 14WR

    Tl;DR Save 60% of development effort building your SaaS and enterprise apps using our open-source platform, demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gob4j072Isg Hi friends, It's a bit surreal writing a Show HN post, being a HN member since 2012, but I'm still excited to be here. We are Arek and Michal (hn: mgl), and we have published Openkoda - an open-source low-code platform for the rapid development of SaaS and enterprise applications. OUR STORY We met at the university and spent the next 10 years building high-performance applications for finance, eCommerce and travel…

    2024 · github.com

  15. 15KS

    KillSaaS is my answer to subscription software in the AI era. I'm building this because I believe small teams can use modern AI tools to create free alternatives to giants like Figma and DocuSign in weeks, not years. We're creating a platform where developers vote on which SaaS to replace, then build it together as open source. wdyt?

    2025 · kill-saas.com

  16. 16HI

    I’m Michał, and I’d like to share with you the journey I went through with my wife and how, thanks to her, we built our first SaaS, PDFBolt (https://pdfbolt.com). I’ve been a developer for over 10 years. In 2020, I decided to build a side project to learn all aspects of app development—deployment, authentication, payments, frontend, landing pages, etc. While looking for project ideas, I came across the Indie Hackers community, where I found a simple HTML to PDF API project. The creator mentioned a lot of interest in it and that it was generating revenue. I thought I’d build…

    2025 · pdfbolt.com

  17. 17IL

    Sysadmin is my bread and butter, but I taught myself PHP and have been coding on and off for the past 6 years. I've worked on numerous freelance gigs, but mainly internal apps that I use for my real job. I worked on this project (on and off) for the past year and I'm happy to finally release it to the public. Even if it doesn't succeed, I'm happy that I was able to "scratch an itch" I've had for the past couple of years. I wanted to make something and prove to myself that I can program. I'm not the greatest, but I'm proud of what I've achieved. http://www.ikeepm.com

    2011

  18. 18MP

    My first "real" web app! I appreciate any comments/suggestions.<p>Also I am available for hire. Contact me at www.sambolgert.com

    2012 · se.cret.ly

  19. 19IB
  20. 20IM

    Hey HN, When I was learning to code I was always intrigued to see the guys on twitter making money with a SaaS. I always wondered how to make them and after a few months I developed my own. I wanted to share a Boilerplate for any new devs who are wondering how to start their own SaaS or wonder how things work. Boilerplate comes with Auth, Payments, UI and all the good stuff. Ali

    2024 · github.com

  21. 21IB

    I built a minimal opensource CMS, I use it myself for my blog and for other SaaS. l love blogging, and sometimes I post random thoughts on my blog. The only thing is, I always did it with .md files, which is fine too However, I was excited about the idea of using a CMS that was very minimal and avoiding the option of connecting something like WordPress or other big platforms. Open source (if you want to fork it or contribute) and free to use (unless I see you have a million views haha). Star the repo if you like it!

    Jan 2026 · github.com

  22. 22LB

    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

  23. 23WW

    Over three months ago, I posted my book on HN and got tremendous +ve reponse. I am happy to inform that I have published the book to leanpub as per the comments I got on HN itself! It is pay as you go model, and the minimum is $0 because I wanted to contribute back to the FOSS Community

    2016

  24. 24IM

    I spent the past few weeks making an open source cloud code editing environment with an AI copilot and multiplayer collaboration! It's fully self-hostable in 5-10 minutes. There's a lot of minor improvements to be made, and some are already listed in the Github issues. Let me know what you think and feel free to try it out.

    2024 · github.com

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →