Refetch – the Open Source Hacker News Alternative
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
refetch.ioTechstory
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Open SourceHacker News AlternativeAppwrite
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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
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Step 02 - 03Peak activity
5 comments in 0-1h
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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
ID: 45116520Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 8:52:00 PM
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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/
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
I like the junk on the readme and its my project as you said :)
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?