Open-Launch vs Product Hunt
Both are directories tools. Here is what separates them.
| Open-Launch | Product Hunt | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Directories | Directories |
| Pricing model | freemium | free |
| Price from | Freemium | Free |
| Upvotes | 16 | 3 |
| What it does | Daily launches with a badge and a backlink, run in the open. | The launch board everything else in this category is measured against. |
What Open-Launch is
Open-Launch is a directory where makers submit a product and it is ranked against the other products launching on the same day. Submissions go in through a form at /projects/submit, and every launch goes live at 08:00 UTC. Listings are grouped into categories including Artificial Intelligence, SaaS, Productivity, Marketing Tools and Design Tools. A free launch costs nothing and puts the product on the homepage, but its backlink is conditional. A free launch earns a dofollow link only if the product finishes in the top three for its launch day and the product displays the Open-Launch badge on its own site. A premium launch costs 12 USD as a one-off payment per launch. It skips the waiting queue, goes live the next day, and carries a guaranteed dofollow backlink from what Open-Launch describes as a domain with a Domain Rating of 71. Only ten premium slots are sold per day. The SEO Growth Package costs 59 USD as a one-off payment, listed against a 199 USD reference price, and bundles a premium launch with a written review article about the product. Payments are final and non-refundable, and billing disputes have to be raised within seven days. The badge requirement is specific enough to be worth reading before you count on the link. Attribution must use one of the official Powered by Open-Launch image badges, because text-only attribution does not satisfy the requirement. The badge has to be at least 150 by 44 pixels, and it has to appear on every page of the linking site. Placement is not decided by the day's ranking alone. Open-Launch runs a submission streak system, and products from users with a high streak are given promoted placement on the main page. The software behind the site is released under a licence called the Open-Launch License, which permits use, copying, modification and redistribution provided the original copyright notice is kept. One condition attaches to that: any web application built on the Open-Launch codebase must display a dofollow link back to open-launch.com. Signing up to the directory itself asks for a name, an email address and a password, with a username and photo optional. The service records usage data such as pages visited and interactions, along with device type, operating system, browser and country. Open-Launch states that it does not sell personal data, and users can request deletion of their personal data, subject to legally required retention.
What Product Hunt is
Product Hunt is a website for finding software that has just been released, organised around a daily list of the products launching that day. Makers post what they have built, the site features the day's top entries, and visitors work through them to see what is new. It is free to use. Listings are sorted into categories, so someone who only cares about a particular kind of software can browse that slice rather than the whole feed. Developer Tools and Artificial Intelligence are two of the categories the site names. Directory listings describe launches from other fields, including SaaS and fintech, appearing alongside them. The daily cycle is what makes the site useful in two directions at once. For anyone building software, it is a way to put a launch in front of an audience that has turned up specifically to look at new products, on a day when that launch is one of a fixed and finite set. For everyone else, it is a filtered view of what has just shipped, with the day's featured entries at the top rather than an undifferentiated stream. Product Hunt was founded by Ryan Hoover. Rajiv Ayyangar is chief executive and Mike Kerzhner is chief technology officer. Directories also mention email newsletters, for readers who would rather have the day's picks sent to them than visit the site, and an API for pulling listing data out programmatically. Neither is described in enough detail to say what the newsletter covers or what the API exposes, so treat both as things to confirm on the site. One caveat: the material Product Hunt states publicly describes what the site does rather than how the daily ranking is decided. How a product earns its place among the top entries, and how long it stays visible, are not spelled out. If those mechanics matter to how you time a launch, check them directly before building a date around them.
We are not affiliated with either product. Upvote counts come from the published formula and neither position was paid for.