Product Hunt Release Notes

• @-mentions now have autocomplete on mobile —Tag your friends to bring them in on the conversation!

• New launch-day dashboard for makers with social link tracking — Track your points and ranking over the course of the day and see which social posts are bringing you the most support.

• Redesigned leaderboard with points — The leaderboard now displays points, which are based primarily on upvotes with comments as an additional factor. Points determine the ranking. In the past we’ve displayed upvotes, which are only one component of the ranking, and this caused lots of confusion (”Why is my launch ranked lower than a launch with fewer upvotes?”).

• Renamed "Topics" to Launch Tags" to be more descriptive — We have two main taxonomies at Product Hunt. Launch Tags are topical tags like AI, Productivity, iOS app, Open Source, Audio that are relevant for launches. Your product hub (which contains all your launches) belongs to one or more Product Categories. These are organized by use case, to help people find the best product for them. E.g. Code review tools, AI databases, SEO tools.

Tag your friends

Faster, better @-mentions — just type someone’s name!

Continuous leaderboard

We’ve removed the “Featured | All” toggle on the leaderboard in favor of a “See all” expander at the bottom. Note that our moderation team still does choose what to feature above the fold (see our guidelines). This was a community suggestion - please keep them coming!

Maker Swag

I’ve heard it’s healthy for makers to separate their personality from their product. And yet I will happily answer to “Rajiv Product Hunt.” The bylines default to your most recent launch, but you can change it in your profile.

New Newsletters

We've completely overhauled our daily and weekly newsletters

The Leaderboard (Monday through Friday)

Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.

The Roundup (Every Sunday)

Everything you missed this past week on Product Hunt: Top products, spicy community discourse, key trends on the site, and long-form pieces we’ve recently published.

Make sure you're subscribed here.

In case you missed it: Product Landscapes

We launched a new set of product category pages, which combine our Shoutouts data (which products are loved by the top builders) and Product Landscape articles written by top founders who are experts in their fields.

This Wednesday, we'll be rolling out an update to the submission flow. Historically, at the end of the submission flow, you could either Launch Now or Schedule for a future time. Going forward though, we're going to replace the Launch Now option with a new Create Draft option.

This change is based on consistent feedback we've gotten from Makers who either accidentally launched their product too early or who wanted to be able to see a complete version of their launch and collaborate with their team on it before scheduling.

Creating a Draft

Creating a draft will give you the opportunity to see a complete version of your launch without needing to select a launch date. It also means that you'll be able to share and collaborate on the launch with your fellow Makers, something that's not possible when the launch is in the submission flow stage. These new draft launches won't be indexed on the site, so you don't have to worry about others finding it. Whenever you're ready, you can schedule the launch for the date of your choice.

Scheduling Updates

Scheduling will also be changing slightly. It will work similarly to how it has in the past, but there will no longer be a time selection. Time zones can easily get confusing and with our global community of Makers, we've seen many launches get scheduled for the wrong time or even date. Now, you can pick the day you'd like to launch and your post will automatically go live at midnight PT, ensuring it gets a full 24 hours on the site. And if you do need to delay a launch to a specific time, you can e-mail us at

[email protected]

.

These changes to the submission flow will help cut down on accidental launches, reduced time on the site, and give our team extra time to review launches and occasionally provide feedback before they go live.

Pre-Launch Dashboard

As a reminder, if you haven't already seen it, we also recently rolled out a new Pre-Launch Dashboard that serves as your home base for Draft and Scheduled launches.

Hello friends, and welcome back to the changelog. The devs have been running on a balanced diet of espresso shots and questionable amounts of energy drinks, which means… you guessed it: fresh updates are here. From saying goodbye to “Coming Soon,” to giving you a shiny red self-destruct button, to sprucing up Alternatives, and a shiny new footer, we’ve packed a lot into this round.

Coming Soon → Forum Threads

The old Coming Soon pages have officially retired (and you lot noticed). From now on, every new product you create gets its own forum thread. It is your place to share updates, drop teasers, or just shout into the void while you wait for launch day. People can still follow from your forum page to get notified when you go live, but now you can actually start the conversation early.

The Big Red Button

Sometimes you launch too early, or plans change. Instead of emailing us at midnight with a “hey, can you make that disappear?” message, you can now handle it yourself. Hunters and Makers get a shiny new self-destruct button at the very bottom of the edit page. Click it and your launch is gone. No forms, no waiting, no awkward back-and-forth, and our support team get to sleep in. (P.S. Don't worry if you accidentally delete your launch, our team can restore it)

Alternatives, updated

We have also rolled out new Alternatives pages so it is easier for people to see similar tools side by side like this page for Windsurf. If you are building the next Notion, this is where folks will discover how you compare and contrast. Of course, the highest reviewed products will land on top and so on.

A Shiny New Footer

At the bottom of the page you’ll notice a new footer section that has some of the hottest categories, products, and forum threads on Product Hunt! Check it out on your coffee break. If that coffee break turns into going down the product rabbit hole, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Go ahead—open your forum thread, start chatting, and maybe peek at where you land on the Alternatives board. Got some feedback you're just itching to get off your chest? We'd love to hear it

Product Hunt has always been the place to see the top launches. Soon you’ll start to see “Top Product” badges in places.

Here’s what’s going on:

We realized something: A "top launch" is different than an actual "top product" that has traction and momentum.

Some months ago, we launched a new feature called Maker Shoutouts to answer this crucial question: "What are the best products on Product Hunt?"

Shoutouts allowed new launchers to celebrate the products they find indispensable (e.g. If you built your frontend with Vercel, and love it, you'd give Vercel a "Shoutout"). This gave us real data about what products the top builders are using — the true “top products” and not merely top launches.

After > 20,000 shoutouts, we have an initial answer to this question.

We've found the true Top Products 🏆

These are the top 0.001% of products, as determined by a combination of Maker Shoutouts and Reviews. These are the products that the best product builders love and admire.

Our inaugural Top Products (grouped by category) are:

• Notion
• Linear
• Intercom
• Slack
• Loom
• Framer
• Webflow
• Figma
• Github
• Stripe
• Supabase
• Firebase
• Tailwind CSS
• Next.js
• Vercel
• React
• GPT-4 by OpenAI
• Claude by Anthropic

How do you win Top Product? 🏆

Make a product that builders love to build with and use themselves. Make a product that builders love so much they shout you out in their launches!

Pre-launch Dashboard

We have an all new pre-launch dashboard to help manage your scheduled launches. As soon as you schedule your launch, which you should always do, you'll land on the new dashboard. It gives you a centralized place to check the status of your launch, quickly make any changes you need to, and see helpful tips about what to include to have a successful launch! If you have a scheduled launch already, you can quickly find the pre-launch dashboard from My products

Check out a demo

Shoutouts Update

Shoutouts continue to be an incredible way to see which products and tools are being used by our community. It also gives Makers a way to show off their launches in even more places! When you shout out a product, your launch will actually be shown on that product's hub.

While we previously limited Shoutouts to just 3, the sky is now the limit! We want to hear about every product you've used to bring your idea to life.

Additionally, we now have categories to help you shout out the products you're looking for! And if you don't find what you're looking for, you can always add it yourself.

Check it out!

Launch Assistant

Launching on Product Hunt is now even easier. After submitting the main URL of your product, our new launch assistant will automatically pull in data and pre-fill the title, tagline, links, topics, and even images. You can make any edits you'd like to from there, but it gives you a pawesome starting point!

New notifications feed

See all the most interesting activity, including replies to your comments and new threads and products you follow.

Recent comments feed

See the threads with the most active conversations.

Views and online count

See how many people have read your thread, and how many are actively viewing it.

Forum search

One of our most requested features since we launched. Try it out and give us feedback please! You can search in two ways:

• Via the the main/spotlight search
• Via the search tab in forums

Newsletter Subscriptions

We've released a new landing page that makes it even easier to manage your newsletter subscriptions. And if you're not currently subscribed, be sure to check out all of the different newsletters we have available, like Deeper Learning (what's going on in AI) and Maker Stacks (what apps top makers use, and why).

Shoutouts Updates

When looking at a product hub, Shoutouts show you which top launches use (and love) that product. Now you can sort by Trending, Helpful, or Top. This makes it even easier to see new Shoutouts coming in along with the ones that are resonating with the Product Hunt community. You can also now mark the Shoutouts you find helpful.

Shoutouts also have a new look on launches. We've listened to feedback from makers and released a more minimal and streamlined design.

Shoutouts continue to be an amazing way to see which tools and products the Product Hunt community is using to build. Be sure to check out the Shoutouts Leaderboard to see the most loved ones.

In case you missed it

As a reminder, we recently introduced the ability to include interactive demos from Arcade in your launch. This is a great way to let the Product Hunt community goes hands on with your product's UX.

Take things to the next level and include Shoutouts and an Arcade demo for your next launch!