For one popular project of mine that hit the front page I had a 2% sign-up rate. It was a free service that used GitHub for authentication, which likely helped.
I had a Netlify landing page (CDN), and the web app was a Django app on a single DigitalOcean droplet. I didn't see any complaints of performance issues / resource usage stayed low.
I used to run a subscription box called "Candy Japan", and got #1 on Google for "japanese candy" for after posting about it on HN. The position lasted for years AFAIK.
Agree with the gist of 1. & 2. but was hoping for a more analytic-scientific approach to measuring the impact of the HN Front Page. That is probably impossible though. If you invent github/sliced bread then hitting the front page might be the best thing to happen to your idea. If your profitable business of scamming grannies gets the same exposure it will probably be removed from the iOS/Android App Stores within minutes. Launching Dropbox here is likely somewhere in the middle.
Not sure if "have a CDN" advice is as sure as is claimed. My projects site has been #1 on the front page many times, and my dinky little $3/mo VPS had no issues at all in any of those cases.
A year or so ago, I posted a link that you can help Anna's Archive by seeding their torrents [0]. I monitored (eye-balled) their stats [1] to see whether there was a bump in seeding afterwards, and couldn't see one. So, the "low conversion" comment might be true.
I have made the front page a few times, and I loved it. The discussion is so good, not to mention the random emails and LinkedIn connections. It's very validating when the topic would be too niche for other communities.
Having a high-visibility post on Reddit meant a stressful few hours and some of the most toxic interactions I've experienced.
My theory is that smart people have a mischievous side and get banned pretty quick by reddits insane moderators, so you're left with the middle of the road petty gotcha people.
HN mods are pretty lenient overall and really seem to only ban after numerous rule violations after giving numerous warnings.
I was about to make approximately the same comment. My site has been front-paged on HN multiple times, as well as in some big subreddits.
A link from HN: Usually comes with thoughtful discussion, and a detectable but temporary uptick in site donations (it's an ad-free, reader-supported project). There are always some detractors, but that's to be expected.
A link from a popular subreddit: A LOT of site traffic and server overload (once in 2015, Google Analytics showed over 6,600 concurrent visitors from /r/TodayILearned), and a lot more bile in the inbox and discussion thread. No uptick in donations.
No surprises there really, but it's useful to verify assumptions.
I hit the front page of HN about two years ago with https://andrew-quinn.me/fzf , and I concur with this list. Among other things it taught me the invaluable lesson that only a surprise $100 bill from my (excellent!) hosting provider could have that I really should optimize my GIFs and cache them before that happens.
As my father always says, experience is cheap at any cost!
My blog post reached #1 on HN two years ago. The 1000+ comments were extremely interesting and encouraging. I learned a lot and engaged in highly insightful discussions. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
I can attest to the follow-on traffic. I had a showHN on the front page for a brief moment. A few weeks later it was featured in a popular Chinese newsletter. There's also been a few smaller spikes that is attributable to HN.
A post went viral here for a culture magazine I work for. It led to the writer getting employee of the month at a big all hands meeting, along with our host shutting down our Google indexing thinking that we were under attack.
Embarrassingly, I used to submit my own website’s article. A few of them have hit the front-page of Hacker News. I remember, once submitting it and waiting for it to hit, when it did, I recorded a video of the first few minutes. Then I went to sleep.
A few years ago, on my birthday, I quickly checked the visitor stats for a little side project I had started (r-exercises.com). Instead of the usual 2 or 3 live visitors, there were hundreds. It looked odd to me—more like a glitch—so I quickly returned to the party, serving food and drinks to my guests.
Later, while cleaning up after the party, I remembered the unusual spike in visitors and decided to check again. To my surprise, there were still hundreds of live visitors. The total visitor count for the day was around 10,000. After tracking down the source, I discovered that a really kind person had shared the directory/landing page I had created just a few days earlier—right here on Hacker News. It had made it to the front page, with around 200 upvotes and 40 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12153811
For me, the value of hitting the HN front page was twofold. First, it felt like validation for my little side project, and it encouraged me to take it more seriously (despite having a busy daily schedule as a freelance data scientist). But perhaps more importantly, it broadened my horizons and introduced me to a whole new world of information, ideas, and discussions here on HN.
Gee, today is my birthday (36). I've never managed to get anything I've built to the HN front page. Always wondered if that means my ideas just weren’t that interesting, or if it's just the luck of the draw.
*edited my original comment without mentioning my project*
> it felt like validation for my little side project
Yep, that can be useful motivation to get a side project past "works for me" through to "works for others".
The pgautoupgrade project (https://github.com/pgautoupgrade/docker-pgautoupgrade) was one of those. It seems to be going ok too, as others have come along and picked up the majority of development (I'm ~outta time). :)
I'm still happy that a few of my blog posts have hit the frontpage here. Two were rants about fake agile[1] and standups[2], which helped me feel not so unhappily alone at the state of the industry. There were others too, such as my post on why I think browser push notifications are terrible, another one was a stupid kludge to fix Cloudflare breaking my SVGs.
There is also another one about dark/light modes that made it to frontpage but got some pretty nasty comments which surprised me, especially from one person in particular who seemed to make it their mission to write absurd comment after absurd comment ironically acting like exactly the kind of person I described in my blog post.
It's always a pretty scary few minutes suddenly seeing a traffic spike, my usual thought is "oh no today isn't going to be good", which is mostly a thought process I have thanks to Reddit being incredibly toxic and unpleasant almost 100% of the time. Any time my blog posts have made it there I dread taking a look at the comments.
I’ve had a couple of things make the FP. One was #1 for a while.
I submitted them both, but I don’t usually submit stuff, and most of my submissions are one-pointers. These were tutorials or side projects that I thought might be useful to folks. I guess some people agreed.
Most of my karma is comments. There’s really almost no value for me, in limelight. My work is usually “below the radar,” so to speak, and I’m retired. I’m not looking for work or notoriety. I actually kind of like hanging around the joint. I spent most of my career, being the dumbest guy in the room, and that’s sort of what I get, here.
52 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 59.3 ms ] threadI had a Netlify landing page (CDN), and the web app was a Django app on a single DigitalOcean droplet. I didn't see any complaints of performance issues / resource usage stayed low.
The Value of Hitting the HN Front Page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44584461 - July 2025 (6 comments)
Did they reach out to you? What was the interview like? Was the post adjacent or directly related to the job tasks?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44292103
And heres the analytics from that time:
https://imgur.com/XGsiot4
I don't reallly bother tracking sign ups as its a totally free app, but from then to now, it looks like i've picked up about 1600 new accounts.
Of course, it means that a post needs to have more than suitable keywords. So, I never sacrifice the quality of a post just too boost its SEO.
I think if it was a static site generator (jekyll, hugo, 11ty) then there'd be no issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzpU8-jCV7k&t=100s
The Value of 'The Value of Hitting the HN Front Page' Hitting the HN Front Page
I guess the value would be people might be more likely to prepare with CDNs or engage with comments etc. I wonder if that's measurable.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40672215
[1] https://annas-archive.org/torrents
Having a high-visibility post on Reddit meant a stressful few hours and some of the most toxic interactions I've experienced.
HN mods are pretty lenient overall and really seem to only ban after numerous rule violations after giving numerous warnings.
A link from HN: Usually comes with thoughtful discussion, and a detectable but temporary uptick in site donations (it's an ad-free, reader-supported project). There are always some detractors, but that's to be expected.
A link from a popular subreddit: A LOT of site traffic and server overload (once in 2015, Google Analytics showed over 6,600 concurrent visitors from /r/TodayILearned), and a lot more bile in the inbox and discussion thread. No uptick in donations.
No surprises there really, but it's useful to verify assumptions.
As my father always says, experience is cheap at any cost!
https://brajeshwar.com/2011/how-is-it-like-during-the-first-...
Now, I consider my site as something rather personal, bland, just my babbles, and kinda s**t compared to many of the ones that pops up on Hacker News.
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jseliger
Later, while cleaning up after the party, I remembered the unusual spike in visitors and decided to check again. To my surprise, there were still hundreds of live visitors. The total visitor count for the day was around 10,000. After tracking down the source, I discovered that a really kind person had shared the directory/landing page I had created just a few days earlier—right here on Hacker News. It had made it to the front page, with around 200 upvotes and 40 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12153811
For me, the value of hitting the HN front page was twofold. First, it felt like validation for my little side project, and it encouraged me to take it more seriously (despite having a busy daily schedule as a freelance data scientist). But perhaps more importantly, it broadened my horizons and introduced me to a whole new world of information, ideas, and discussions here on HN.
Thank you HN for this wonderful birthday gift!
*edited my original comment without mentioning my project*
Yep, that can be useful motivation to get a side project past "works for me" through to "works for others".
The pgautoupgrade project (https://github.com/pgautoupgrade/docker-pgautoupgrade) was one of those. It seems to be going ok too, as others have come along and picked up the majority of development (I'm ~outta time). :)
There is also another one about dark/light modes that made it to frontpage but got some pretty nasty comments which surprised me, especially from one person in particular who seemed to make it their mission to write absurd comment after absurd comment ironically acting like exactly the kind of person I described in my blog post.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31074861
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40557347
It's always a pretty scary few minutes suddenly seeing a traffic spike, my usual thought is "oh no today isn't going to be good", which is mostly a thought process I have thanks to Reddit being incredibly toxic and unpleasant almost 100% of the time. Any time my blog posts have made it there I dread taking a look at the comments.
I submitted them both, but I don’t usually submit stuff, and most of my submissions are one-pointers. These were tutorials or side projects that I thought might be useful to folks. I guess some people agreed.
Most of my karma is comments. There’s really almost no value for me, in limelight. My work is usually “below the radar,” so to speak, and I’m retired. I’m not looking for work or notoriety. I actually kind of like hanging around the joint. I spent most of my career, being the dumbest guy in the room, and that’s sort of what I get, here.