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Ask HN: Is there a truly solid low-code to build Twitter or Reddit clone?

21 points by node-bayarea ↗ HN
Hi there, I'd like to build a full featured Reddit or Twitter clone with most of the common functionality. The requirement I have is that it needs to be production-ready. I also need things like image uploading, plans, stripe integration etc. Is there a low-code solution that you think that'd help me build the frontend and the backend? I just can't find something that can really help with both frontend and backend.

I'm thinking something like retool (frontend) and firebase (backend) combo. Is that that route I should take?

EDIT: Just to give some more context as people were asking: The features I'm looking to have are: Nothing really special but here are some requirements.

1. Allow people to login using LinkedIn, Twitter, or Gmail. 2FA auth. 2. Allow people to post news articles, comment on others, upvote, downvote. - Have nested comments 3. Scan for NSFW images and bad words to hide them. 4. Admin tasks: remove, block, throttle spam (as much as possible) 5. Have people and company profile page (similar to what you see on Twitter) - Have some special sections on those profile pages to allow folks to have links (CTAs) to things they care about.

6. Verify people for authenticity. --- Engage folks --- 1. Show Trending topics, send emails, send other notifications to get people to engage.

--- business side--- Allow companies/people to login, pay and ad display ads to show up on different places on the app.

30 comments

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loh
Check out Molecule.dev.

It has basically everything you're requesting - both front-end and back-end, image uploads, authentication (and OAuth login via Twitter, Google, etc.), user plans/subscriptions, Stripe integration, cross-platform support with Apple Pay and Google Pay, push notifications, emails, documentation, unit tests, etc. And after some minor setup, it's immediately ready for you to publish to app stores if you wish to do so, with thorough step-by-step instructions on how to set it all up.

I should also note that it isn't a framework, so you're not locked into learning some specific way of doing things. It assembles full-stack codebases using tools and libraries most developers are already familiar with, so you'll have full control over everything. It is designed for teams, startups, and indie devs to quickly build and scale.

You'd still need to implement custom functionality like voting and reposting yourself, however.

Disclaimer: I'm the creator of Molecule.dev.

daenz
>Reddit or Twitter clone

You're talking about two fundamentally very different products with very different usage patterns. It would be helpful to hear what features you are looking for from each product and how you expect users to interact with it.

anamax
> The requirement I have is that it needs to be production-ready.

At what scale?

[dead] jakear
node-bayarea
I meant I'm looking for something that takes away majority of the work/headache for what I want like retool + firebase (potentially)
hdjjhhvvhga
Your answer seems to imply that you equate "production ready" with "infinite scalability" but they're vastly different.
jakear
"Production ready" is meaningless without specifying the scale of the supported productions. A phone number and a yard sign is a "production ready customer acquisition, scheduling, and support system" for some businesses. As is "knocking on doors until someone buys your thing".
node-bayarea
Good question. This is in the B2B2C. I doubt I'll get millions of people per day LOL. So anything decent but something that I can quickly set up is what I'm looking for.
sideproject
I created Newsy to make use of my un-used domain names and turn them into Reddit-like content aggregators.

https://newsy.co

It has all the features you are looking for in a content aggregator/curation tool (and some more).

marban
Created https://biztoc.com on GCP from scratch — As with most ready-made stuff, it would have been too much hassle to tweak thing in the long run. Spam detection in the likes of Reddit is probably the only thing I would resort to a third party solution.
zorr
At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion: IMHO the best nocode approach is to build a pitch deck, secure funding and hire developers to build it.

The features you are asking for are complex. Both Twitter and Reddit have spent years iterating with large development teams to get these features. And I don't think nocode is ready yet for this complexity.

Even in "highcode" environments these things are not trivial to set up. Have a look at some open source twitter/reddit clone codebases (which typically not even touch payments) and see how complex they are. Now imagine each of these components needs some more complexity on top to make it configurable through "nocode" platforms.

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anamax
The hard part is NOT building such a site. The hard part is getting users.

It's almost impossible to get funding for something like this without first demonstrating that you can get users where "demonstrating" means "already has a lot of users and, more important, growth in users". (There are a few people who could get funding for this project before such a demonstration but those people wouldn't be asking this question on hacker news.)

jasfi
You could use nocode to build a prototype, use that as the platform to get initial users, then get funding and rewrite with code as the userbase grows if the nocode solution can't keep up.
TameAntelope
I’m honestly surprised nobody’s taken the bait here; the answer is a resounding and emphatic no.

You need a team (multiple teams, really) of developers to build and maintain the set of functionality on either Twitter or Reddit.

One 10x dev could probably get something going to kickstart fundraising, but to reach true feature parity, you’re talking multiple teams of engineers executing months (if not years) of work.

fulafel
This doesn't preclude using a low-code platform to do it, unless you assume low-code means producing software without developers.
node-bayarea
In 2022, I'd imagine there is some startup that does this. I'm not asking for something that truly scales to millions of users and has ALL the features of production reddit / hackernews. I'm thinking an MVP production app that has basic things that we all think about that a social networking app would have. I'm surprised that it's still so hard to find a "SaaS in a box" with some sample production apps like Twitter-clone/Reddit-clone, etc that does all the wiring for us.
TameAntelope
You've asked for enough features here that make a low-code solution straight up impossible.

Also, if you've ever spent time on any freelancing site, requests like yours come in basically every other project. "I just want a social media app like Reddit/Twitter, here's $50 bucks and two weeks, let me know when you're done."

Honestly, it's a meme at this point, non-technical people asking technical people to build them a Facebook clone and completely failing to understand the immense complexity that goes into building anything for users beyond yourself.

Like I said, I'm surprised nobody here had given you a response like mine yet, given how common this conversation is.

dismantlethesun
Reddit is just a forum with a non chronological sort. The entirety of the voting code can be a one liner. Adding upvote buttons is also a one liner.

It’s pretty easy to do the Reddit MVP but all the stuff they added later on is a major project. That includes their gamification, avatars, spam code, moderation, wiki, chat, private forums, etc.

As for Twitter, the east part is making it. The hard part is making the backend scale. Even Twitter inc. itself took months to make it scale (remember the “fail whale”?).