Hey, this is Eldad the founder and CEO of Appwrite, I’ve been waiting a long time to build something really cool with Appwrite Cloud and to experiment with vibe coding at scale. With that in mind, I spent the last 3 weekends watching Netflix while vibe coding to build something I felt the open source world has been needing for a while.
So… I’m very happy to introduce my latest side project: Refetch - the open source Hacker News alternative. A place for you to explore the latest tech discussions and news.
On the technical side, Refetch was 100% vibe coded and is fully powered by Appwrite Cloud (DB, Auth, Functions, Hosting) - and it’s 100% open source. I took vibe coding to the extreme and literally wrote zero lines of code myself (though I did tons of reviews). I’m really happy with the results - in total, it took me about 15 net hours to get everything ready and fully functional. It was a refreshing mental shift towards execution instead of traditional coding.
The platform isn’t just open source, it’s also aiming to be radically transparent. You can see how many people are online, how many visitors Refetch has had previously, and even watch our ranking algorithms in action. No secrets, no bias, not powered by a startup accelerator. The goal is to take this approach to the extreme - a place tech people can trust.
Ironically, we’re launching today on HN itself - should be interesting to see how that turns out. I hope you like Refetch, we’re just starting out, give Refetch a try and share your thoughts https://refetch.io/
I'd guess you'd set proper expectations with your target audience if you included "AI-powered content analysis" in your comment (or resubmit with an updated title)
It would also be my personal opinion not to put auto-updating junk in the readme of your project, but it's your project
Thanks, missed that, and just added the MIT license. We have a single bot that adds quality content found on the web, the algorithm is fully available on GitHub and there is a disclaimer on every post that was submitted by the bot. This is designed to make sure that the platform has content at launch and not zero interactions. The Bot posts are ranked exactly the same as human posts as you can see on the source code.
I like the junk on the readme and its my project as you said :)
So, right now its only available on source, but the idea is to add a component on each thread that visually show how the ranking was calculated. If you have more ideas feel free to share!
Coolify is also a great product. Appwrite specifically would compare better with Firebase or Supabase, Appwrite Sites, our new addition to the stack is directly positioned as a Vercel/Netlify alternative
A new Appwrite product that lets you deploy and host your websites and web apps right inside Appwrite. No more juggling services. No more gluing things together. No more multiple subscriptions. Just build, deploy, and go live. All in one place, and it's 100% open source, the kind that lets you (really) self-host and (really) own your data.
Appwrite has always been about giving you the tools you need to build fast, secure, and modern apps. However, while Appwrite has always worked hard to deliver a great backend experience, one big piece was missing: web hosting.
Until now, you had to rely on external platforms like Vercel or Netlify to get your web app live. That meant extra configs, more integrations, and one more invoice to worry about. With Sites, that gap is gone.
The best part: Appwrite is a fully open-source platform to offer both frontend hosting and your entire backend. All under one roof. From static sites and SSR apps to databases, authentication, storage, messaging and serverless functions, you can now build, deploy, and scale your entire app stack using just Appwrite.
Open source is at the core of everything we do at Appwrite. We’re thrilled to share we have completely open sourced Pink, the design system that make the Appwrite design and front end teams tick.
Pink is designed to be easy to get started with, fully accessible, easy for collaboration, have great DX and work with any web framework out there. Needless to say it also looks great.
Huge kudos to the Appwrite team for all the hard work in making this possible! We can’t wait to see what you all might build with it
I’m thrilled to share that Appwrite 1.0 is finally released. This is the first stable, production ready release of Appwrite. This version is a major step in our mission toward reducing software development complexity, and making software development accessible and more enjoyable for all developers.
What is Appwrite?
Appwrite is an open-source backend-as-a-service solution that provides all the core APIs required for building a modern web or mobile application. The different Appwrite services have APIs for managing Authentication, Databases, Storage, and Functions with support for most of the popular coding languages.
What we introduced in Appwrite 1.0
- New DateTime attribute
- Upgraded Permissions model
- Upgraded Database queries syntax
- Additional SDK helpers for permissions, queries, roles, and IDs
- Introduction of improved logs for Appwrite Functions
- Guest users can now create Documents, Files and execute Functions
- Ability to import users from other platforms into Appwrite
- New Etsy, Disqus and Podio OAuth providers
- Automatic cache cleaning to keep your storage usage in check
Appwrite started as my passion project in 2019 to try and solve my own frustrations with software development. A lot of development was repetitive and complex. During this time, We were fortunate to get massive support from the open-source community who shared my frustrations and quickly joined in to help.
With the help of 600 contributors, we’ve made 4,600+ Pull Requests and 13,000+ Commits to arrive at Appwrite 1.0. I’ve been lucky to be part of such an inclusive community that is always happy to welcome new contributors, get feedback, and collaborate to improve this platform.
What’s Next?
Appwrite still has tremendous room for growth. While we see 1.0 as a stable basis for our workflows and APIs, our team intends to add many more cool features to make Appwrite even more exciting. Here’s a sneak peek at ideas I’ve been excited to discuss:
Although we still haven't created a fully automated migration, this doesn't have to be a huge take, but it will be mainly be up to the way your app is integrated with Firebase and how coupled the two are.
For migrating you'll have to do two things, migrate your data and replace your Firebase API calls. Appwrite provides both REST and Realtime (WebSocket) APIs that should be replaced with any Firebase calls in your app. You can migrate your Firebase data to Appwrite by using the Appwrite Server SDK in one of your favorite languages (https://appwrite.io/docs/sdks).
So… I’m very happy to introduce my latest side project: Refetch - the open source Hacker News alternative. A place for you to explore the latest tech discussions and news.
On the technical side, Refetch was 100% vibe coded and is fully powered by Appwrite Cloud (DB, Auth, Functions, Hosting) - and it’s 100% open source. I took vibe coding to the extreme and literally wrote zero lines of code myself (though I did tons of reviews). I’m really happy with the results - in total, it took me about 15 net hours to get everything ready and fully functional. It was a refreshing mental shift towards execution instead of traditional coding.
The platform isn’t just open source, it’s also aiming to be radically transparent. You can see how many people are online, how many visitors Refetch has had previously, and even watch our ranking algorithms in action. No secrets, no bias, not powered by a startup accelerator. The goal is to take this approach to the extreme - a place tech people can trust.
Ironically, we’re launching today on HN itself - should be interesting to see how that turns out. I hope you like Refetch, we’re just starting out, give Refetch a try and share your thoughts https://refetch.io/