IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Ask HN: Share your personal website

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Here are the 10 most prevalent themes from the Hacker News discussion about personal websites and directories.

1. Crowdsourced Directory Building

The discussion originated as a request to populate a directory of personal websites, with the creator welcoming contributions.

"Yes, it would. If someone follows the links to https://github.com/hnpwd/hnpwd.github.io and decides to create PRs, they are very welcome." — susam

2. Tooling and Automation

Users suggested various ways to manage the directory more efficiently, primarily through pull requests and automated workflows.

"You should automate this, maybe drive all of these content from a json file and accept PRs." — coffeecoders

3. Comparison to Existing Resources

Participants noted the similarity of the initiative to other existing directories like Kagi's Small Web and blogs.hn.

"Is this much different than https://github.com/kagisearch/smallweb ?" — ramblurr

4. The "Small Web" Revival

There is a shared sentiment of nostalgia and support for a return to independent, personal websites over centralized social media.

"bring back the era of personal websites <3" — adhivd

5. Content Discovery and RSS

Users discussed the difficulty of discovering new content and the critical role of RSS feeds for following updates.

"I am surprised github doesn't have RSS feed built in. Very interesting site by the way. I would follow it but my social media is limited to RSS." — chairmansteve

6. Technical Implementation (Static & Modern Stacks)

Many users discussed or showcased the technology powering their sites, ranging from simple static generators to modern frameworks and Nix.

"My website is here, a static website built only with Nix" — embedding-shape

7. Personal Motivation and Accountability

For some, sharing their site publicly served as a catalyst to start writing, update their portfolio, or maintain their digital presence.

"This seems neat and maybe help motivate me to update and better maintain my page..." — wildwookie05

8. High Participation and Community Sharing

The thread became a massive repository of shared links, demonstrating a high level of engagement from the community.

"Cool idea! Here's mine" — stn8188

9. Design Philosophy and Simplicity

Several contributors emphasized the value of simple, readable, and low-dependency web design.

"no cookies" — dkrajzew

10. AI and Vibe Coding

A smaller but notable theme was the use of AI tools to generate or assist in building websites, bypassing traditional coding hurdles.

"I'm really proud of this - vibe coded the hell out of it with Claude, but I love how I was able to step out of the annoying and nit picking css and browser incompatibilities..." — TyrunDemeg101

🚀 Project Ideas

Automated Personal Website Discovery & RSS Aggregator

Summary

  • [A service that automatically discovers, verifies, and aggregates personal websites and blogs from Hacker News discussions, social media profiles, and other sources, creating a unified, curated feed.]
  • [Solves the "friction" and manual effort required to find and track new personal websites, and the problem of finding RSS feeds or contact info, enabling effortless discovery of the "small web".]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience HN users, blog readers, and anyone interested in discovering and following independent creators and personal websites.
Core Feature Automated crawling of HN posts/comments and user profiles to find personal sites, followed by automatic RSS feed and contact info discovery.
Tech Stack Python/Go (crawling), PostgreSQL (storage), React/Svelte (frontend), hosted on VPS or cloud functions.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Premium features like advanced filtering, saved searches, or API access for developers.

Notes

  • [Addresses user "coffeecoders"'s suggestion to "automate this, maybe drive all of these content from a json file and accept PRs" and "surprisetalk"'s intent to "crawl these comments and add them soon."]
  • [Provides a direct solution for users like "rambambram" who couldn't find an RSS feed, by proactively discovering and presenting subscription options.]

Personal Site Health & Analytics Dashboard

Summary

  • [A web-based tool that allows users to submit their personal website URL for automated analysis and ongoing monitoring.]
  • [Solves the problem of site maintenance and discoverability by checking for critical features like RSS feeds, security headers, mobile responsiveness, broken links, and tracking HN mentions.]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Individuals who maintain personal websites/blogs but may not be professional web developers.
Core Feature One-click URL analysis that reports on best practices (RSS, HTTPS, SEO, performance) and provides a "health score."
Tech Stack Node.js, Lighthouse CI, Puppeteer, simple SQL database, hosted as a web service.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • [Directly addresses the user who noted, "I'm surprised github doesn't have RSS feed built in." This tool would solve that exact pain point.]
  • [Provides actionable feedback to help users improve their sites' reach and maintainability, a likely concern for creators posting their links publicly.]

URL-to-PR Auto-Filler

Summary

  • [A lightweight tool that takes a submitted personal website URL, automatically extracts metadata (title, description, owner), and pre-fills a pull request for a directory like hnpwd.]
  • [Solves the friction of manual PR creation mentioned by "zahlman": "would it be easier to use PRs than work through this thread?" and "susam"'s desire to welcome PRs.]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience HN users who want to contribute to community projects but are deterred by the manual effort of forking, cloning, and editing files.
Core Feature URL input field that triggers a backend process to fetch site metadata and generate a ready-to-review PR to the target repository.
Tech Stack Simple web frontend, backend API (e.g., Go/Python) with a web scraping library (like BeautifulSoup or Colly), and the GitHub API.
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • [This automates the exact workflow described in the discussion, turning a multi-step manual process into a single action.]
  • [It lowers the barrier to entry for community contribution, encouraging more people to share their sites.]

"Small Web" Personalized Recommender

Summary

  • [A discovery engine that recommends new personal websites to follow based on the content and style of sites a user already likes.]
  • [Solves the information overload and discovery problem within the "small web," moving beyond simple lists to a personalized, engaging experience.]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Active readers and followers of personal blogs who want to find more relevant content.
Core Feature A simple interface where users can input 2-3 favorite blog URLs to get a curated list of recommended sites based on topic modeling and site structure analysis.
Tech Stack Python (scikit-learn, spaCy for NLP), vector database (e.g., FAISS), simple web UI.
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue-ready: Freemium model with unlimited recommendations for subscribers.

Notes

  • [Moves beyond the basic directory model mentioned by "ramblurr" (comparing to Kagi's smallweb) by adding intelligence and personalization.]
  • [Engages power users who want to dive deeper into niche topics within the personal website ecosystem.]

HN Personal Website Analytics API

Summary

  • [A developer-focused API that provides data and analytics on personal websites mentioned on Hacker News.]
  • [Solves the need for data-driven insights, allowing developers to build their own tools or analyze trends in the small web community.]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, researchers, and creators who want to understand the landscape of personal websites on HN.
Core Feature An API endpoint that returns JSON data for a given website, including HN comment count, upvotes, and first mention date.
Tech Stack Backend language (Go, Rust, or Python), PostgreSQL/Elasticsearch for data storage/querying, hosted serverless functions.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Tiered API access based on request volume.

Notes

  • [Serves a specific, unmet need for creators like "dtran" who mentioned they "Didn't quite hit the criteria for 100 points," by providing a tool to track these metrics.]
  • [Enables the community to build upon the data, fostering further innovation in this space.]

Cross-Platform Personal Site "Showcase"

Summary

  • [A modern, interactive gallery or map that visually showcases personal websites, allowing users to filter by tech stack, topic, or design style.]
  • [Addresses the static nature of current directories by providing a more engaging and explorable interface to discover the diversity of personal sites.]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Users looking for inspiration for their own sites or wanting to browse the "small web" in a more visual, less list-based format.
Core Feature Interactive grid or map view of websites, with visual previews and filtering capabilities (e.g., "Show me blogs about Rust," or "Show me sites using minimal CSS").
Tech Stack Frontend framework (React, Vue, or Svelte), backend API for metadata, server-side rendering for preview images.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • [Provides a more user-friendly experience than a simple directory, appealing to users who appreciate web design ("nanapipirara"'s goal for a playful site).]
  • [Highlights the variety and creativity within the personal website space, which is a key theme of the discussion.]

Portable Personal Website Profile

Summary

  • [A service that helps users create a standardized, portable "profile" for their personal website, including metadata like topics, RSS feed, social links, and a brief bio.]
  • [Solves the inconsistency in how personal sites present information about their author and content, making it easier for aggregators and readers to consume.]

Details

Key Value
Target Audience All personal website owners, especially those who want their content to be easily discoverable and linkable.
Core Feature A user-friendly form or wizard to generate a standardized JSON or XML file that can be linked from their site's root domain (e.g., /.well-known/site-profile.json).
Tech Stack Web form (HTML/JS), server-side logic for validation and file generation, documentation.
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • [This creates a standard that would make the work of aggregators (like "surprisetalk" or "coffeecoders") much easier, enabling a more robust ecosystem.]
  • [It directly empowers individual site owners by making their content more interoperable, a core value of the open web.]

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