“Paid tools are expensive, and free ones are too limited.”
minsing-jin, on news.ycombinator.com ↗
One rough draft in, a LinkedIn, X and Threads post out, and the only subscription is your own API key.
ManyChat charges $39 a month to answer your Instagram DMs. AutoDMX runs the same funnel on a box you already pay for.
“It is the ManyChat / IGdm alternative you can self-host — no monthly fee, no vendor lock-in, full data ownership.”
Instantly wants $97 a month to send cold email from inboxes you already own. Hedwig sends the same sequences for $0, and the code is yours to host.
“I created an open source alternative to tools like Instantly or Smartlead, which charge huge amounts of money per lead for basic cold email campaign management.”
Seven local SEO checks that rank trackers charge $39 a month to run against public Google data. No account, no card, no "upgrade to see the rest".
“The pattern that annoyed me most: owners paying monthly for 'rank trackers' and 'GBP optimizers' that just resell public Google Places data behind a subscription.”
Built something because a company wanted your credit card for a feature that fits in a single file? That's spiteware. Submit it and join the hall of fame.
