Life & fun · December 20, 2023
Flat – a minimalist teamwork app that protects focus (live demo)
Hi HN! We're Seth, Andrew, & Marcin. After a decade of wanting a simple, lightweight teamwork tool and not finding one, we decided to build one ourselves. We’re calling it Flat, and we have two main goals: 1. Everyone can figure it out in just a few minutes, from the intern to the zero-patience CEO. 2. It doesn’t create extra work for anybody. Everything written in Flat would have been written somewhere anyway; Flat just provides an obvious, consistent place to put it. If you check out the demo, please let us know how you think we’re doing on these goals and where we could do better. (Mobile…
Flat – a minimalist teamwork app that protects focus (live demo) launched on December 20, 2023 with 10 votes, #1,052 of 3,780 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
In plain words
Flat is a minimalist teamwork application designed to be learned quickly by any team member and to streamline communication without creating additional work. The tool consolidates information that would normally be scattered across multiple platforms into one consistent, obvious place. It prioritizes asynchronous communication over real-time chat, aiming to reduce miscommunication and help teams focus on actual work. Flat is currently available on desktop only.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN! We're Seth, Andrew, & Marcin. After a decade of wanting a simple, lightweight teamwork tool and not finding one, we decided to build one ourselves. We’re calling it Flat, and we have two main goals: 1. Everyone can figure it out in just a few minutes, from the intern to the zero-patience CEO. 2. It doesn’t…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →- FAFlat – a minimalist teamwork app that protects focus (live demo)2024 · ▲6
Hi HN! We're Seth, Andrew, & Marcin. After a decade of wanting a simple, lightweight teamwork tool and not finding one, we decided to build one ourselves. You can try out what we're building in a sandbox demo here: https://try.flat.app. We’re calling it Flat, and we have two main goals: 1. Everyone can figure it out in just a few minutes, from the intern to the zero-patience CEO. 2. It doesn’t create extra work for anybody. Everything written in Flat would have been written somewhere anyway; Flat just provides an obvious, consistent place to put it. If you check out the demo,…

- FSFlat – simple task tracking that stays out of your way2024 · flat.app · ▲30
Hi HN! Flat’s a lot like Trello, but with a cleaner, simpler, friendlier UI and real discussion threads. Flat also sports a first-class GitHub integration. To take it for a spin without signing up, just go to https://try.flat.app. And there’s also a quick demo video here: https://youtu.be/NW2c9cZVaD0 We made Flat for ourselves, after a decade of wanting a simple, lightweight tool to stay on top of our work and not finding one. Trello is close, but we find it really frustrating to use in lots of ways. And most everything else is way too complex. We think there’s a…


- LTLinen.team – A lightweight, thread-first Slack alternative2024 · ▲124
Hi HN! I'm Kam, the founder and one of the authors of Linen. Today, we are launching Linen.team (https://linen.team/), a lightweight threaded messaging app for your team. Modern workplace messaging apps (like Slack) are based on IRC, which is great for small groups, but as it scales, breaks down quickly: you either get overwhelmed by notifications or you have to turn them all off. Most chat apps have threads tacked on but aren't built from the ground up with this design in mind. We wanted to create a thread-first experience where you can organize and prioritize conversations…
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