Hacker News: what to know before you talk about your product there
Last checked October 10, 2026.
15 statements, each read at the source beside it. Where Hacker News said it itself, its words are quoted as written.
What kind of place it is
community forum
“Hacker News is a bit different from other community sites”
From its welcome page.
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
English
“HN is an English-language site. That's one of the many things that's not in the explicit list but is a long-established rule”
Said by its moderator dang on March 12, 2026.
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
Who is there
developers
“we've expanded the focus of news.ycombinator.com from news about startups to news interesting to hackers generally.”
From the announcement of August 14, 2007. In Stack Overflow's 2025 survey, 20.4% of professional developers said they use it regularly (23,529 answers).
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
indie makers and founders
“So the way to make a news site for startup founders is to make it be about more than just startups.”
The same page. They are a minority: in a self-selected poll on the site in 2023, founders and indie developers were 188 of 552 votes.
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
Which products fit
open-source projects
Counted by us on October 6, 2026 through HN's search API, a rough cut by words in titles: in the past 12 months 2,366 Show HN titles said “open source”, and 49 of them reached 100 points.
hn.algolia.comcounted by uschecked October 6, 2026
AI products
The same count: 9,006 titles with “AI”, 69 of them at 100 points or more; “agent” 6,175 and 62; “LLM” 1,781 and 27.
hn.algolia.comcounted by uschecked October 6, 2026
developer tools
The same count: “CLI” 2,089 titles and 18 at 100 points or more; “library” 439 and 7; “API” 1,115 and 5.
hn.algolia.comcounted by uschecked October 6, 2026
games
The same count: “game” 1,240 titles and 27 at 100 points or more. Not marked as fitting: SaaS (226 and 1) and browser extensions (188 and 0); mobile apps are weak (“iOS” 390 and 5).
hn.algolia.comcounted by uschecked October 6, 2026
What decides whether you are seen
Rank is points over time: the first hours after posting count most
“The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.”
From its FAQ.
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
Asking for upvotes is penalised
“We penalize or ban submissions, accounts, and sites that break this rule”
Its FAQ's answer to “Can I ask people to upvote my submission?”: no.
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
New accounts are limited in posting a Show HN
“We're temporarily restricting Show HNs because of a massive influx, mostly by users who aren't yet familiar with the site or its culture.”
The threshold is not published. Its moderator dang on March 10, 2026: “that would just be an invitation to game the system”.
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
The form that counts most
Something people can try at once, plus a comment on how it was made
“Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with.”
The rules of Show HN. The same page: “Don't post landing pages or fundraisers.”
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
Its rules
Mentioning your own product: limited
“Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.”
From its guidelines. For a Show HN it adds: “The project must be something you've worked on personally and which you're around to discuss.”
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
AI-written text: banned site-wide
“Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans.”
From its guidelines; the announcement of March 11, 2026 got 4,229 points. A moderator on July 28, 2026: “Your posts are getting killed because our software classified the text as genai.”
news.ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
What it says about automated reading
“In connection with your use of the Site you will not engage in or use any data mining, robots, scraping or similar data gathering or extraction methods.”
The sentence of Y Combinator's terms that covers the site.
ycombinator.comits own pagechecked October 10, 2026
Some on the list get a private beta invite before launch.
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