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Growth · alternatives · 2026

WD

24 alternatives to What do you think of my new social app?

Hey there, First time posting on Hacker News in about 2 years! The reason I’m posting is that I thought I’d write about the product I’ve been building, in hopes it resonates with people. Why build yet another social app? Because I deleted almost all social media around 3/4 years ago as it was just net negative on my life. There was very little that was truly interesting, I didn’t care about looking good to other people and because of the ‘media’ and ads, the apps were all designed to make me spend too much time for what I was getting. I hated it and what it meant for people’s behaviour,…

On Circles is a social app built by someone who stepped away from mainstream social media due to its negative effects on behavior and time spent. It addresses the discomfort many people feel sharing with strangers by… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. What do you think of my new social app? launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    I built this site as a quick test if a time boxed social media experience feels better than an endless one. So far I've just been using it with friends and it feels nice, but it seems like it is time to bring it to a larger audience. Let me know what you think! It is just based on EST for now, sorry.

    2025 · seven39.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2
    Circle▲753

    The modern community platform for creators

    2020 · circle.so · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Hi HN! https://flat.social is a web video meeting app for organising fun online meetings & social events. Each participant can move around and talk with others in their proximity. Here is a quick demo if you wanna see it in action: https://youtu.be/Y2yH3twjrx4 I’ve been on it solo for around a year right now. Tech used is Next.js, Typescript, PIXI.js on the front-end and Node, Mediasoup, Socket.io and Matter.js (physics engine) on the backend. Feel free to jump in into the demo room (https://flat.social/f/Flat.Social-Demo) to say hi, I’ll be…

    2022 · flat.social · its alternatives →

  4. 4
    Amber▲133

    Hi HN! Excited to share early access to Amber. I’ve tried every all-in-one messenger out there (Beeper included) but they always fell short. No real folders, no AI, clunky UI, no CRM features… As a founder who speaks with hundreds of people every quarter, I needed something better. So I decided to rebuild the entire experience from ground up. Thoughts from one of our users: "The app I've been searching for for a looong time." Check it out for free today! Demo: https://www.loom.com/share/8b5bc80b9893436b9190ae41fc3f0f50 Features: - All messages (Whatsapp, Telegram,…

    2025 · useamber.app · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Working in social media? This book is for you.

    2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Hey HN, long time lurker first time poster. I built a social network called PIECES. After building a private blog last year after I had to get off IG and Substack, I decided to productize it. It's here now. It has a dedicated web experience + iOS/Android. Would love if you tried it out!

    Jul 2026 · try.piecesof.me · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    A living map of indie hackers around the world

    Mar 2026 · nomaddot.verifiedtools.info · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    my phone secretly robbed all my dreams and i didn’t even knew it got so bad. when i saw my screen time being about 11hrs with ~95 phone pickups per day, i realized how bad it got. my problem is that i could not avoid social media entirely as i post actively because i’m involved in marketing and branding. I tried the usual, app blockers & time limits, but i always find myself hitting “one more minute” like a junkie. i’m not looking for a complete social media absence or deleting everything as these radical solutions don’t fit my lifestyle and needs and i tend to come back needing even more.…

    2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    I hope you are doing better today than yesterday. (TLDR in the comments; or enjoy my story :) ) Why: About 11 months ago, I launched my app for the first time on Reddit's r/lonely because I had previously experienced loneliness myself during grad school. I wanted to reach out to people going through similar experiences by providing them with what would’ve helped me in the past. I felt this was an important mission for me and a much more rewarding one than my day job that I quit my job to work on the app full-time. It was necessary because I did not come from a programming background. I…

    2024 · main.d1lmgoealm7rq0.amplifyapp.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10
    Circle▲2

    For updates too small for Instagram, but nicer than WhatsApp

    Feb 2026 · circle-nxgd.onrender.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Hi Everyone, I created a mobile app called Accumoo, and I would appreciate it if y'all can have a look, download and give me a favorable review. Lots of blood, sweat, tears and love went into this app, and I hope you LOVE it as much as I do - it's the app I always needed and wanted. Anyhow, I've been a Rails developer and Software Engineer for a long time, and this is my first stab at a mobile app. It's a "habit tracker" app on steroids that's just fun to use - syncs across devices, local-first architecture - and an easter egg game for good measure. Help a disabled vet out and give it a go.…

    Jan 2026 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12AM

    TLDR: I built a "quick and dirty " private social network for my friends, posted on Reddit and HN, got some interest so now have built it properly along with my brother. site link: https://intimost.com/login/ demo creds: [email protected] Demo123! Full version: I needed a social network where I can just send updates and nothing else. So I built it, my friends liked and now I have built it "for the world". Everything is private by default. - Text-only updates - No likes. Only views to acknowledge a post - [in development] Comments are private between the poster and…

    Oct 2025 · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    I built Campfiree because I got tired of platforms treating users as products. On Campfiree, users submit feature ideas and vote on them weekly. Moderation is handled by randomly selected community juries, no corporate team deciding what's acceptable. It's free with ads or $7/year without (free during beta). We have 55 users so far and ship features every week based on what the community votes for. I'd love honest feedback on the model and the product.

    2025 · campfiree.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Hello, here's my first app on the App Store, a week end project I've made with a friend. I had the idea - questionable - and did the UI. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instatus/id622077531?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2 (there's also the free version) The concept it's pretty simple, share your thoughts on Instagram, only words on white background so it will seems that your words will float into your friends feed - I suggest to not use any filter! - got already some ideas for future upgrades. I'm giving away 3 code to get the full version, if you want one, just ask! Best, Filippo p.s. This message…

    2013 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15MA

    Hello. :) I've noticed for the last few years it feels like everyone has been saying the same thing, that social media got baaad, timelines feel hostile, nothing you see is actually from people you chose to follow, and every platform seems optimized for outrage, screenshots, and engagement bait rather than the original microblog ideas of the early 2010s I miss the 2010 social styles, where you have to share your @name with a friend IRL because search wasn't really search... A place where you followed people, saw what they wrote, stumbled into interesting discussions, and hashtags meant…

    Jan 2026 · meepr.co · its alternatives →

  16. 16GM

    Just finished this over the last few weekends, wanted to get this in front of a few users. A few things: - There are no users as of me posting this. - Add "Hacker News" to your interests once you've signed up. It'll allow us to see each other. - You will only see other users with similar interests. - Only common interests will be revealed. Let me know any feedback/suggestions/bugs/idea sucks, etc.

    2011 · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hey all, I've been working hard on my side project and will be trying to turn it into my main project now. Rated is a social rating platform for media, places and products. By having everything in one place, its easier to add friends, follow and compare ratings. There are cool data features like similarity scores between each users and predicted ratings for every item. The main aim is to help people discover the best content in a fun and social way. I've made a website (not that pretty yet) and launched on the app stores, but there's a long way to go. Still haven't properly validated the…

    2024 · rated.fun · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Hi HN, I’ve been building a small social network where the feed is always chronological — newest posts come first, always. It’s not 100% algorithm-free (there’s still basic filtering to avoid spam or abuse), but the core idea is that every user has a real chance to be seen, even with zero followers. It’s lightweight, works well on mobile, and supports both posts and comments. Most of the content is currently in Portuguese, since it started with a Brazilian audience, but the interface is mostly language-neutral. I’d love any feedback on the concept, UX, performance, or anything else. Thanks!

    2025 · qqpost.netlify.app · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    I missed what social media used to feel like, so I made an app to share real moments without algorithms deciding what matters. On the Apple App Store only, sorry Android.

    2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Find friends based on your thoughts and not curated profiles

    Dec 2025 · krylabs.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21WJ
  22. 22MF

    Please have a look at www.socialeaks.com and tell me what you think. This is my first adventure in coding (my background is not CS). I started learning rails about a month ago via railstutorial.org. When I finished that, I felt the best way to continue learning would be to just build an app from scratch. I came up with this concept while observing how crazy the world had gone over WikiLeaks. I thought this was a funny idea. I also thought it would be fun to build! So, here I am. I built this in rails 3 and it is currently living on Heroku. It took me about two weeks to code, doing just about…

    2011 · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    A social networking service and online community.

    2018 · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Hey there HN! Happy to share a piece of my labor I've been working on for the past 6 months. The idea for the app came to me when I found out that taking notes in Telegram saved messages and private channels is pretty convenient, but it became a mess real quick. Imagine accidentally sending your to-do list to your boss? And there were no work-related stuff, haha So I decided to solve this pain point of mine by creating a little app, just as a side project. But then I lost my job due to a layoff, so I decided to triple down on my idea, polish it, and make it a SaaS in the hope of making it…

    2024 · feeedy.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 →