Sqwok – A social chat alternative to Twitter and Reddit
I previously did a Show HN late Dec 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25470672 That was a great experience and in the past year I continued to develop the site to bring it to a level of stability and maturity that I felt necessary for it to have a chance to succeed. Sqwok is all about answering the question: Can we have better open conversations on the internet? I wasn’t satisfied with the existing means of discussing topics such as culture, history, politics, and technology through threaded comments, and was simultaneously impressed with Slack bringing the IRC…
In plain words
Sqwok is a chat-based social platform designed as an alternative to Twitter and Reddit for open conversations. It uses a Slack-like interface rather than threaded comments, enabling users to discuss topics including culture, history, politics, and technology in real-time chat rooms. The platform is intended for general audiences seeking casual, community-driven discussions without the structure of traditional social media feeds or comment threads.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
I previously did a Show HN late Dec 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25470672 That was a great experience and in the past year I continued to develop the site to bring it to a level of stability and maturity that I felt necessary for it to have a chance to succeed. Sqwok is all about answering the question: Can we have better open conversations on the internet? I wasn’t satisfied with the existing means of discussing topics such as culture, history, politics, and technology through threaded comments, and was simultaneously impressed with Slack bringing the IRC experience to the browser for a more general but enterprise focused audience. I wondered why not create an open Slack-like chat app for general discussion? Not gamers or enterprise but rather for people to have open, kitchen-table discussion on the matters of the day (or just for fun!). I set out to build this because I wanted to use it myself and felt that existing chat apps weren't designed for open public discourse in the way Reddit/Twitter are but for threaded comments & mostly unidirectional communication. This past year I’ve been very grateful to have a group of people continuously show up, offer support of the site and the idea, encouraging me to continue. Without those people I would have probably gave up! But alas I want to see this through and I believe now is the moment to make it happen. Since the last Show HN I’ve added: - markdown support in chat messages, post text, and user bio in profile (soon coming to full text post). - User profiles including bio, location, photo avatar, and chronological post listings. - New “who’s online” list that shows the top 10 ppl online and helps steer people to active conversations. - @mentions now work in posts, user bios, as well as chat messages. - Email notifications to be alerted when someone @mentions you. - Settings pages with ability to change password, delete account, and manage notification settings. - Upgraded image handling to support higher res photos with upcoming features allowing enhanced viewing. - Major refactor of the chat handling to stabilize it and fix many bugs with presence, locations, etc. - Many improvements to the codebase, frontend, backend, UI, tests, etc - Updated mobile web UI that drops you straight into the chat in a single view. - Ability to toggle full width chat view on desktop. - Live message counts displayed on the post list items that are updated in realtime. - Updated location handling for realtime location display. - Backend stability & aggregate analytics. Through Sqwok and particularly through the last Show HN I've met & got to know numerous people living across the entire Earth from Laos to Europe to Africa, all through a silly piece of software that for some reason seemed like the thing to work on. Truth be told there is much, much more I want to do with this. I believe now is the perfect time with the state of existing social networks and I’m hoping to find more people to support the site and help drive it to the next level. Let me know if you have any questions, Thanks!
Does the same job
all alternatives →
- SAStruct – A Feed-Centric Chat Platform2024 · struct.ai · ▲298
Hi HN! I’m Jason, a product designer at Struct Chat. At Struct, we're frustrated by the clutter, distractions, and inefficiencies plaguing existing chat platforms like Slack and Discord. We've built a radical new chat platform that leverages threads, feeds, and AI to help alleviate these problems, and give you back more time in your day. Struct uses a thread-first approach to keep conversations on-topic. It applies AI-generated titles and summaries to help you decide what's worth your attention. Threads are then organized in a real-time feed, keeping all your conversations up-to-date and at…
- SASquabblr – A Twitter/Reddit hybrid platform2023 · squabblr.co · ▲24
Hey guys, I made a post about this about a week ago and was told to create a Show HN post. So here we are! Squabblr is a hybrid that takes Twitter style posting and combines it with Reddit style commenting. It came up from a personal want where I liked using Twitter to see what people I'm interested in are up to, but found that the reply system left a lot to be desired. It's very hard to have or follow conversations with their UI. While Reddit provided a great commenting system but didn't support following people very well (or had much usage of it at all). So I decided to create Squabblr.…
- IBI Built a Reddit-style Bluesky client – still rough, but open to ideas2025 · threadsky.app · ▲127
I’ve been messing around with Bluesky for a while, and one thing I really missed was a proper way to browse discussions in a structured, Reddit-like way specially myself being daily reddit user. So, I ended up building a Reddit-like client for Bluesky that scratches that itch: Threadsky.app It pulls in trending topics, lets you explore conversations with a threaded view (so no more getting lost in replies), and even allows users to create channels with customizations, basically, like subreddits but on Bluesky. That said, this is still pretty barebones, and there’s a lot to improve. I really…
More life & fun this month
the category →- TL
Life & fun · 10d ago · louisabraham.github.io
Photosynthesis fires two of your iPhone
Life & fun · 29d ago · photosynthesis.camera
SoloUno▲310Take control of hair pulling, nail biting & skin picking
Life & fun · 28d ago · solouno.io
Scroll through all 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 reachable Rubik's Cube permutations.
Life & fun · 27d ago · everycube.alen.is
Hi HN, I built Eigendrum, a web tool that solves the 2D wave equation for arbitrary shapes so you can hear what they sound like as drums. How it works: * Solves -∇²u = λu using finite element analysis (Kφ = λMφ) on a triangle mesh. * Validated to <0.1% error against closed-form solutions for circles (Bessel zeros) and rectangles. * Sound model factors in strike location, Rayleigh damping, and mallet width. * Includes Kac drums I & II to demonstrate identical sound spectra from different geometries. * No frameworks, build steps, or dependencies. Repo and tests:…
Life & fun · 27d ago · baselashraf81.github.io
Launched alongside, April 2022
the whole month →- WA
Hi HN community, I’m Zach, founder and CEO of Warp, and am excited to show you Warp, a fast Rust-based terminal that’s easy to use and built for teams. As of today, Warp is in public beta and any Mac user can download it. It works with bash, zsh, and fish. The terminal’s teletype-like interface has made it hard for the CLI to thrive. After 20 years of programming, I still find it hard to copy a command’s output; I always forget how to use `tar`; and I always have to relearn how to move my cursor. To fix fundamental accessibility issues, I believe we need to start innovating on the terminal,…
Dev tools · 2022 · warp.dev
- SS
Life & fun · 2022 · slowsocial.us
- MY
Implement scanyourpdf.com in JavaScript. No backend servers needed.
Life & fun · 2022 · lookscanned.io
