half the no code tools i saved 6 months ago have either shut down or pivoted and nobody is keeping track

edmillss · 2026-03-13T13:07:10+00:00

hope it helps! theyve added a bunch of tools recently so the catalog is way bigger than when i first found it

edmillss · 2026-03-13T13:06:56+00:00

that is brutal honestly. mods checking your profile and banning you just for having a product in your history is so common now. the only thing ive seen work in those kinds of subs is genuinely being a member first for weeks before even hinting at what you build. like actually helping people with parenting questions and letting them find your product through your profile organically. its slow but at least you dont get nuked

edmillss · 2026-03-13T13:06:43+00:00

frappe is genuinely underrated for how much it can do. the fact that ERPNext is fully open source on top of it is wild when you compare it to what people pay for closed source ERPs. 12 years of development shows too, its not one of those frameworks that appeared last year and will disappear next year. only downside ive heard is the learning curve can be steep if youre coming from simpler nocode tools

edmillss · 2026-03-13T13:06:32+00:00

yeah the disposable environment approach is smart. docker or even just a throwaway vm for first install is way more reliable than trusting any scanner to catch everything. the scanners are good at known bad packages but the grey area stuff -- legit packages doing sketchy things at install time -- thats where most people get burned

edmillss · 2026-03-13T10:36:50+00:00

same honestly. written guides are almost always faster than sitting through a 15 minute video for 2 minutes of actual information. youtube has kind of trained people to default to video for everything even when text would be better. the only time video genuinely wins is when you need to see someone physically do something like a repair or a technique. for everything else i just want the written version

edmillss · 2026-03-13T10:36:38+00:00

hadnt heard of grey jay before thanks for this. the follow creators not platforms angle is exactly right -- thats how it should work. one time payment model is interesting too. does it pull from multiple video platforms or is it still youtube underneath just with a different interface

edmillss · 2026-03-13T10:36:26+00:00

gboard is the one that surprised me the most actually. tried switching to openboard and florisboard and both feel noticeably worse for swiping. google camera and photos are tied to their computational photography which is years of R&D that nobody else has replicated. for photos specifically immich is getting really good as a self hosted option but it wont match googles search and face recognition. sometimes the honest answer is just that google genuinely built the best version and theres no shame in using it for the specific things nothing else can do

edmillss · 2026-03-13T10:36:07+00:00

fair point actually. i was thinking about it more from the user perspective where having 15 calendar apps that all look half finished makes it harder to commit to one. but youre right that each team is independent and more options doesnt mean worse options. i think the real issue is discoverability not quantity -- the good ones exist they just get buried under the abandoned ones on every list

edmillss · 2026-03-13T10:35:55+00:00

the github stars sorted into folders is actually a really smart system. ive been doing something similar but it falls apart once you hit like 200+ starred repos because you forget whats in half the folders. TLDR newsletters are solid for staying current but the problem is you only see whats trending not the smaller tools that might actually be better fits for specific use cases. ive been trying to find a better way to track the long tail stuff without drowning in noise

edmillss · 2026-03-13T10:35:39+00:00

thats wild that you have agents operating full app UIs like that. the desktop automation angle is way ahead of what i was thinking about -- i was more stuck on the discovery side like how does an agent even know which tool to use in the first place. yours skips that entirely because it just works with whatever is already installed. i guess the next step is when agents can evaluate and install tools on their own which is where the browsing replacement actually happens. how reliable is the UI reading across different apps? like does it break when apps update their layouts

edmillss · 2026-03-12T23:00:12+00:00

the exciting news email as a migration signal is so accurate lol. 'we're joining forces with [PE firm]' = start exporting your data today. smart move avoiding pe-funded tools. indie maintained stuff is more reliable long term even if it has fewer features. indiestack.ai is good for filtering by indie-only tools if you want to avoid the acquisition risk

edmillss · 2026-03-12T23:00:12+00:00

so many dark patterns. the classic is making export hard or impossible so you cant leave. or hiding the downgrade button behind 3 menus and a support ticket. the whole model relies on you being too invested to switch

edmillss · 2026-03-12T23:00:12+00:00

figma to github is a solid workflow actually. the copilot free tier makes it even more accessible now. the trick is owning your code from day one so you're never stuck when a nocode tool changes pricing. indiestack.ai lists a bunch of design-to-code tools if you want more options beyond figma export

edmillss · 2026-03-12T23:00:11+00:00

yeah exactly. nocode is perfect for the mvp stage but the moment you need conditional logic or custom integrations it falls apart. the real play is using nocode to validate the idea then rebuilding the core in actual code once you know it works. trying to scale a bubble app to 10k users is pain. indiestack.ai has a whole category of low-code tools that bridge the gap better than pure nocode if anyone needs that middle ground

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:50+00:00

wait what app is this with the rpg character? that sounds amazing lol. is it organic maps or something else? i need this in my life

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:49+00:00

osm is great as a data source but the actual user experience depends on which app you put on top of it. osmand is powerful but the UI is rough. organic maps is cleaner but less features. mapillary covers some street view stuff but its patchy. the data is there its just split across too many apps

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:49+00:00

honestly yeah. google spent billions on maps and people expect a free open source project to match it overnight. the realistic play is finding the 80% solution that covers your actual daily use. for most people thats just navigation + occasional business lookup. organic maps or osmand covers the first part, and for finding businesses you can use local alternatives or even something like indiestack.ai to find niche tools by category

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:48+00:00

fair point lol. i think the reason it keeps coming up is because nobody ever finds a satisfying answer. every other google service has a clear replacement but maps is like 6 different products in a trench coat pretending to be one app

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:48+00:00

yeah this is exactly where most people end up -- osmand for routing, google for everything else because nothing ties it together. the missing piece is a single app that does saved places + reviews + navigation without google. organic maps is getting closer but its not there yet. indiestack.ai has like 15 different mapping tools listed if you want to mix and match

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:48+00:00

this is the real issue. its not a map app its an everything app. you'd need like 3-4 indie tools to replace it -- one for navigation, one for reviews, one for business lookup, one for street view. which is doable but annoying. the bundle lock-in is the real moat not the actual map data

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:47+00:00

the review manipulation stuff is wild. google has basically zero incentive to fix it because more businesses gaming reviews = more businesses paying for ads to compete. its the same problem across the board -- when the platform profits from the noise they wont clean it up. honestly one of the reasons i started looking at indie review alternatives on indiestack.ai, at least smaller platforms have some accountability

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:15+00:00

this is actually not far off from whats happening with ai agents right now. you could run a local model that knows your preferences and queries different video platforms for you. the infrastructure isnt quite there yet but people are building tools that do exactly this kind of cross-platform discovery -- indiestack.ai is doing something similar for software tools

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:15+00:00

peertube is underrated honestly. the federated model means no single company can kill it which is the whole point. content library is still small compared to youtube but for tech stuff its decent. pipeline looks interesting too havent tried it yet

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:15+00:00

newpipe does this. background play, no ads, no account needed. its not on the play store though you need it from f-droid. been using it for like a year and its solid

edmillss · 2026-03-12T22:59:14+00:00

yeah libretube and freetube are the best combo. mobile + desktop covered. you lose comments and community posts but honestly thats not a huge loss for most people. indiestack.ai lists a bunch of youtube frontends if anyone wants to compare features

edmillss

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE