Refetch – the Open Source Hacker News Alternative

Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago

eldad_fux

19 points

5 comments

refetch.ioTechstory

excitedpositive

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Open SourceHacker News AlternativeAppwrite

Key topics

Open Source

Hacker News Alternative

Appwrite

The founder of Appwrite introduces Refetch, an open source alternative to Hacker News, built using Appwrite Cloud and vibe coding.

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Key moments

01Story posted
Sep 3, 2025 at 10:53 AM EDT
4 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Sep 3, 2025 at 10:53 AM EDT
0s after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
5 comments in 0-1h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03
04Latest activity
Sep 3, 2025 at 11:46 AM EDT
4 months ago
Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (5 comments)

Showing 5 comments

eldad_fuxAuthor

4 months ago

2 replies

Hey, this is Eldad the founder and CEO of Appwrite, I’ve been waiting a long time to build something really cool with Appwrite Cloud and to experiment with vibe coding at scale. With that in mind, I spent the last 3 weekends watching Netflix while vibe coding to build something I felt the open source world has been needing for a while.

So… I’m very happy to introduce my latest side project: Refetch - the open source Hacker News alternative. A place for you to explore the latest tech discussions and news.

On the technical side, Refetch was 100% vibe coded and is fully powered by Appwrite Cloud (DB, Auth, Functions, Hosting) - and it’s 100% open source. I took vibe coding to the extreme and literally wrote zero lines of code myself (though I did tons of reviews). I’m really happy with the results - in total, it took me about 15 net hours to get everything ready and fully functional. It was a refreshing mental shift towards execution instead of traditional coding.

The platform isn’t just open source, it’s also aiming to be radically transparent. You can see how many people are online, how many visitors Refetch has had previously, and even watch our ranking algorithms in action. No secrets, no bias, not powered by a startup accelerator. The goal is to take this approach to the extreme - a place tech people can trust.

Ironically, we’re launching today on HN itself - should be interesting to see how that turns out. I hope you like Refetch, we’re just starting out, give Refetch a try and share your thoughts https://refetch.io/

mdaniel

4 months ago

1 reply

GitHub isn't picking up your license declaration because the actual file is 404 https://github.com/refetch-io/refetch/blob/main/LICENSE (and it doesn't currently scan readme text for the declaration)

I'd guess you'd set proper expectations with your target audience if you included "AI-powered content analysis" in your comment (or resubmit with an updated title)

It would also be my personal opinion not to put auto-updating junk in the readme of your project, but it's your project

eldad_fuxAuthor

4 months ago

Thanks, missed that, and just added the MIT license. We have a single bot that adds quality content found on the web, the algorithm is fully available on GitHub and there is a disclaimer on every post that was submitted by the bot. This is designed to make sure that the platform has content at launch and not zero interactions. The Bot posts are ranked exactly the same as human posts as you can see on the source code.

I like the junk on the readme and its my project as you said :)

pavel_lishin

4 months ago

1 reply

> even watch our ranking algorithms in action.

Can you say more about this? I see where it lives in the source code, but can I see the algorithm's details for a given post?

eldad_fuxAuthor

4 months ago

So, right now its only available on source, but the idea is to add a component on each thread that visually show how the ranking was calculated. If you have more ideas feel free to share!

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ID: 45116520Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 8:52:00 PM

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