10 Indie Hackers alternatives for makers (2026)
Indie Hackers gives you a nofollow link and a community that ignores announcements, which is the correct trade to understand before you look for a replacement. What it is actually good for is being read by other founders when you have revenue numbers or a post-mortem to put in front of them. If that is what you want, you need a place to post. If you wanted the listing, you need a directory. They are not the same search.
Places to post: Show HN puts you in front of the most technically literate audience available for free and the least forgiving; Awesome Indie has around 9,400 makers, though its queue is months long; Sidehunt, MakerHunt and Startup Fast run weekly hunts a small following can win. SaaSsy Board is the closest thing to Indie Hackers outside it, because the listing is a public leaderboard of your monthly revenue. Places to be listed: Peerlist for anything with a portfolio behind it, Buildhop where the ranking runs on watch time rather than votes, IndieHackerStacks which files you under what you built with, and Launch Llama, whose 55,000-founder newsletter is the actual traffic event rather than the page.
Across the 10 platforms on this list, median approval time is 14 days across the 7 that state one, 5 of 10 give dofollow backlinks, 9 are free to submit. Median domain rating: 42.
Show HN
The most technical audience you can reach for free, and the least forgiving.DR 91freeInstantSaassy Board
A public revenue leaderboard where $10 buys a dofollow, a charity donation and your monthly numbers on display.DR 15paidInstantPeerlist
A professional network for builders with a weekly project spotlight.DR 77freeAbout a weekAwesome Indie
9,000 makers and 20 launches a day, with 3,164 products already booked ahead of you and a nofollow link at the end of it.DR 28free3-6 monthsSidehunt
Weekly indie hunt with two genuinely free lanes, a 400-word floor and a calendar full four months out.DR 41freemium3-6 monthsBuildHop
An indie startup directory that ranks by dwell time rather than votes, and refuses any product whose site will not load in an iframe.DR 43freeNot statedStartup Fast
An Open Launch board with honest slot math: five free launches a day, dofollow for daily winners and $9 payers.DR 72freemium1-2 weeksIndieHackerStacks
Lists what you built your product with rather than what it does, free and dofollow for life, if you can get the sign-up button to respond.DR 30freemiumNot statedMakerHunt
The AI-facing twin of Sidehunt, same operator and same four steps, with the same badge gate at the end.DR 41freemium3-6 monthsLaunch Llama
A tool directory whose real asset is the 55k-founder newsletter behind it, and whose free tier charges you in upvotes.DR 67freemiumNot stated