For makers who need eyes on it
Startup launch directories
Compare the cost, wait and requirements before you submit. Free can mean a place in a months-long queue, a community checklist, or a project you can publish today. We submitted Bidrise.live to 12 of these venues ourselves, and we publish what happened and how many visitors each one has actually sent.
Sources checked: to
Some of these checks are more than 30 days old. Recheck the linked official sources before relying on costs or waiting times.
Venues we tried, and what they sent
Visits are counted live from our open analytics: human page views that arrived from each venue in the last 180 days. A venue without a public listing cannot send anyone yet.
| Venue | Cost | Wait | Our submission | Visits sent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TinyLaunch | Cost: Free standard launch; premium $39 | Wait: 4 to 5 weeks for a free date | Our submission: Launch scheduled | 1 visit |
| SaaSHub | Cost: Free listing; featured $99 a month | Wait: No stated time; 6 days for us | Our submission: Listing live | 0 visits |
| Launching Next | Cost: Free; paid express review | Wait: 2 to 4 months (per their email) | Our submission: In the free queue | 0 visits |
| SideProjectors | Cost: Free; paid priority review | Wait: 2 to 5 business days (stated) | Our submission: Submitted, in review | 0 visits |
| Alternative.me | Cost: Free listing | Wait: No stated review time | Our submission: Submitted, in review | 0 visits |
| SourceForge | Cost: No fee to request; paid plans | Wait: No stated review time | Our submission: Submitted, in review | 0 visits |
| AlternativeTo | Cost: Free queue; $5 priority review | Wait: At least a few months (free, stated) | Our submission: Not submitted yet | 0 visits |
| Fazier | Cost: Free with a badge; paid from $29 | Wait: Within 30 days (free, stated) | Our submission: Not submitted yet | 0 visits |
| Startup Stash | Cost: $199 or $399 a year (quoted to us) | Wait: 48 to 72 hours after payment | Our submission: Publishing requires payment | 0 visits |
| Microlaunch | Cost: Free queue; paid from $39 | Wait: 2 to 3+ months (free, stated) | Our submission: Not submitted yet | 0 visits |
| PeerPush | Cost: Free queue; instant launch $39 | Wait: About 2 months in the free queue (Oct 2026) | Our submission: In the free queue | 0 visits |
| LaunchNest | Cost: Free with a badge; paid from $19 | Wait: Live once its badge is verified (stated) | Our submission: Not submitted yet | 0 visits |
Every venue at a glance
Product Hunt
Launch dayA daily product launch board with discussion and voting. A free post and a promoted placement are different options.
Best for: A product release whose maker can be present to answer questions.
Free to launch
A personal account and completed onboarding are required. Company accounts cannot post products; a launch does not guarantee a homepage feature.
Our guide: How to launch on Product Hunt in 2026Hacker News (Show HN)
DiscussionA discussion of something you personally made that people can try. It is not a directory submission or a scheduled launch campaign.
Best for: Working, non-trivial projects whose makers want technical feedback.
Free
Make the product easy to try, ideally without signup. Landing pages, waitlists and lists do not qualify for Show HN. Be available to discuss your work.
Indie Hackers
Always-onA community for founders sharing what they are building and learning. Participation is a longer-term commitment, not a guaranteed product placement.
Best for: Makers who want feedback, accountability, and durable relationships over a one-day spike.
Free
Accounts are for individuals under the site terms. Use your own identity and follow the rules of the discussion you join.
Peerlist Launchpad
WeeklyA weekly project launch board inside a professional network for developers and designers.
Best for: Dev and design tools that benefit from a week-long window instead of a single day.
No fee stated
Launches open every Monday (UTC) and run through the week. The top three projects get a profile badge and a newsletter feature. Prepare a complete project page on your Peerlist profile first.
BetaList
Pre-launchEarly-stage and pre-launch products shown to an audience of early adopters looking for the next thing before everyone else.
Best for: Collecting first users and waitlist signups before a bigger public launch.
Paid submission only
All submissions are paid, with a full automatic refund if the startup is not selected. Plan prices appear only at the end of the signed-in submission form. Your own domain is required; products launched weeks ago or with significant press coverage are not a fit.
Uneed
Launch dayA product launch platform with free and paid scheduling options. The free route has conditions; it is not a promise of a permanent listing.
Best for: Makers who can wait for an assigned date or want to compare paid scheduling options.
Free queue; paid from $14.99
Uneed assigns free launches a date at most five months out. An upvote score of 10 keeps the product published and 20 earns a followed backlink; below 10 it cannot rejoin the free line.
TinyLaunch
Launch dayA launch board where each product gets a launch day and collects upvotes. Your pre-launch page is public as soon as the launch is booked, so supporters can ask to be notified.
Best for: Makers who can wait a few weeks for a free launch day and bring a handful of early supporters.
Free standard launch; premium $39
Sign in with a code sent to your email, create a maker profile and a startup, then book a date. Free launches join the standard queue, stay on the homepage for several days and are reviewed by moderators first. TinyLaunch also publishes a guide for booking a launch through its API.
Our submission notes: launch scheduledSaaSHub
Always-onA software directory built around alternatives and comparisons. A product page can appear publicly while it waits for approval.
Best for: SaaS and web tools that people discover by searching for alternatives to a product they know.
Free listing; featured $99 a month
A released product on its own domain, in English. Agencies, waitlist pages, unreleased products and free subdomains are rejected. Every product is reviewed; verifying with an email on your product domain gives it higher priority, products with more identified competitors are approved first, and those with none go to the bottom of the queue.
Our submission notes: listing liveLaunching Next
Always-onA startup directory that features new startups after a manual review. Only selected startups are published.
Best for: Makers who are not in a hurry and want a lasting directory page.
Free; paid express review
Submitting is free. Every entry is reviewed by hand, and you are emailed only if your startup is published. The form asks whether the project is a side project, bootstrapped or investor funded.
Our submission notes: in the free queueSideProjectors
Always-onA marketplace and showcase for side projects. Makers can show a project for feedback and users, or list it for sale.
Best for: Side projects looking for feedback, early users or a buyer.
Free; paid priority review
Sign in and submit the project for manual review, which filters out spam, misleading and incomplete listings. A showcase that is not for sale uses the same flow as a listing for sale, and SideProjectors takes no commission on sales. Its help pages give two different review times: usually around 24 hours, or 2 to 5 business days.
Our submission notes: submitted, in reviewAlternative.me
Always-onA software alternatives directory where each app page lists similar apps.
Best for: Apps with well-known alternatives that people already search for.
Free listing
Submitting is open to everyone, but a user account is required, and you submit from the account dashboard. The site describes itself as heavily moderated, so new entries wait for approval.
Our submission notes: submitted, in reviewSourceForge
Always-onA large business software directory with category pages, comparisons and reviews, separate from its open source project hosting.
Best for: Business and SaaS products that buyers compare by category.
No fee to request; paid plans
The request form asks for the product name, website, category, description, audience, pricing model, platforms and a logo, and shows no price. It does not say whether a basic listing stays free. No account is needed to send the request; one is needed later to manage the page.
Our submission notes: submitted, in reviewAlternativeTo
Always-onA software discovery directory for people looking for alternatives to an app they already know. Approval depends on product fit and the review rules.
Best for: Released software with a clear alternative that people already search for.
Free queue; $5 priority review
Suggest the app from a signed-in account. English only. Coming soon, private beta, invite-only and early access products are rejected, as are hardware, regional apps, thin AI wrappers, agencies and clones. Descriptions may not contain links.
Our submission notes: not submitted yetFazier
Launch dayA maker launch platform with a daily launch board and an active community. The free route asks you to link back to Fazier before you launch.
Best for: Indie and AI-maker products whose builders will take part in the community.
Free with a badge; paid from $29
Create an account. The free Basic launch is reviewed and listed within 30 days and requires a backlink to Fazier on your homepage or footer, usually its embed badge, which Fazier detects automatically. You can launch once every six months.
Our submission notes: not submitted yetStartup Stash
Always-onA curated directory of startup tools and resources, organised by category.
Best for: Tools for founders and startup teams, when a yearly listing fee fits the budget.
$199 or $399 a year (quoted to us)
Apply through the form on the add-listing page with a work or business email; personal addresses such as Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo are blocked. The site does not publish listing prices; the reply to our application quoted them.
Our submission notes: publishing requires paymentMicrolaunch
30-day launchA launch platform for indie products where each launch runs as a 30-day campaign.
Best for: Makers who can wait months for a free slot, or will pay to launch sooner.
Free queue; paid from $39
Sign up with an X or Google account. The FAQ describes a free Regular Launch with a queue of two to three months or more, unverified status and nofollow backlinks; paid tiers skip the queue.
Our submission notes: not submitted yetPeerPush
Always-onA product directory that stores each product as structured data (use cases, audiences, pricing, platforms, alternatives) for search engines and AI assistants, with daily, weekly and monthly community rankings.
Best for: Software and web products that want a permanent, structured listing and can wait for a free slot.
Free queue; instant launch $39
Sign in with an emailed six-digit code or Google, then submit your URL: the form drafts the listing for you to correct. Free submissions wait in a publishing queue behind paid ones. Builders with 400 or more recent community points can launch at once without paying. A published listing stays up permanently.
Our submission notes: in the free queueLaunchNest
Always-onA product directory with upvotes, reviews and a fortnightly tournament: on the 1st and 16th of each month the 16 most-upvoted products enter a voted bracket. It also runs Outbid, a four-spot homepage leaderboard ranked by amount paid.
Best for: Makers who will put a LaunchNest badge on their own site, or pay to skip it, and can gather upvotes before a tournament cutoff.
Free with a badge; paid from $19
Sign in with a code sent to your email. Listing is free and permanent, but a free listing turns public only once the LaunchNest badge is installed on your own site and verified, or an admin approves it. A free account can have two live listings at a time.
Our submission notes: not submitted yetBidrise.live
Always-onA public project board with shareable project pages and recorded impressions, clicks and bid history. Bidrise.live publishes this guide.
Best for: A public project listing with visible attention statistics.
Free to publish; optional paid bids
Sign in and explicitly publish your project. Free listings appear below paid projects. Optional bids add to your total and determine paid rank. Views, clicks and rank are not guaranteed.
How we checked: each venue's official help, pricing and submission pages, read on the dates shown, plus our own submissions of Bidrise.live, recorded from the confirmation pages and emails we received. We do not treat a draft or pending submission as a published listing. None of these links earns us a referral commission.
How to get more out of a launch
Listing is only the first step, and Founden.ai, the company-building platform whose founder also runs this leaderboard, has a guide with zero-budget ways of getting people to talk about your product once it is live on these directories.
Pick venues by audience, not reach.
A smaller directory full of your exact users beats a huge one full of the wrong ones. Match each venue to who your product is for.
Write a real listing.
One clear sentence a stranger understands, an honest description, and a screenshot that shows the product working. A thin listing gets ignored everywhere.
Stagger, do not blast.
Post to one or two venues at a time. Each round of feedback improves the next, and you can tell which venue actually sent people.
Track what worked.
Use a tagged link when the venue permits it. AlternativeTo requires a clean official URL, so use referral data there. Start your measurement window when the listing becomes public, and separate human visits from crawler traffic.
Common questions
What are the best free Product Hunt alternatives?
Choose by audience and eligibility first. Show HN suits projects people can try and discuss with their maker; Peerlist suits developer and design projects. Software directories can be useful when buyers are comparing alternatives. A free submission may still require verification, community participation or a long review queue. Read the dated requirements above before choosing.
Where should an indie maker launch a side project?
Start with one place whose visitors have the problem your project solves. Bring a working product, a clear description and a real screenshot. Check the price, eligibility and earliest publication date before spending time on the submission. A directory listing is one experiment, not a guarantee of users.
Do I have to launch everything on a single day?
No. Daily launches, weekly launches and ongoing directories work on different schedules. An accepted listing and a scheduled launch are different milestones. Bidrise.live lets you publish a free project page without choosing a launch day; free projects appear below paid entries.
How many directories should I submit to?
Start with one or two relevant venues. Confirm that the listing is publicly visible, then measure human referral visits over two weeks. A saved draft, a review-queue confirmation or a future launch date is not traffic. Expand only when the audience and effort make sense for your product. At the other extreme, RobotTraining.jobs, a job board from the team behind Bidrise.live, went to hundreds of directories, and its public list of those directories shows which have published it and how many are still reviewing it.
Publish a free project page
Add your project to Bidrise.live, the board behind this guide. Your free listing gets a public page, with recorded impressions and outbound clicks visible to everyone. Free projects appear below paid entries. Optional bids let you compete for paid rank.