HN Explorer

Alternatives to HN for "tech outside of AI" discussion?

61 points by summonerOS ↗ HN
I'm not the first to opine that recently there seems to be an effect on HN whereby the AI hypetrain has essentially drowned out discussions of anything other than stories either directly or indirectly related to AI and other terrible decisions coming out of the US.

While I do often have the instinct to completely bury my head in the sand and try to forget it's all happening I'm more concerned with the psychological impact it's having. I'm basically sick and tired of being so sick and tired and exposure to so many continuously miserable headlines isn't helping. What I would like instead is a return to the days when HN was a forum that still showcased cool things people were working on and included discussions on topics outside of the AI-saturated lens that now dominates.

If any good alternatives exist I'd like to join! Or perhaps there are some means of using HN that would allow me to filter the AI noise a bit better. If anyone has had any success with this please let me know!

29 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 70.2 ms ] thread
sagrd
Was thinking the same thing. I love Hacker News, but perhaps an AI filter on the site would be really useful.
lordkrandel
Yeah, it's become such a boring AI marketing outlet.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r
“it’s a technology that i don’t like therefore its marketing, but I am apparently blind to how HN is a boring marketing outlet in every other respect, too.”
faangguyindia
Everything on HN these days get downvoted to Oblivion. And people are heavily pushing ai and cloud products, the builder/hacker mindset is gone imho.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r
Do you need to be reminded that you’re on a “news” website run by a venture capital company? If this isn’t a “dead dove do not eat” situation then I truly do not know what is. You are just becoming disillusioned.
Maledictus
I've been thinking for a while to create an AI tool to classify articles (not just on HN), and filter the ones I'm not in the mood for.
Leena-ch
Lobste.rd for general tech, specific subreddits or Discord communities for narrower topics. HN is probably not coming back from this one the AI industry is too concentrated in the same demographic that posts there.
dundunUp
boring AI marketing outlet.
JCSlim
I would agree. While not quite what you’re looking for, I recently built a site, RNKFlow.com (Rank Flow), to bring in multiple tech/science feeds including HN and Product Hunt to pull in more interesting posts. There is a filter option so can search across all feeds and only see what you’re interested in. Also an alerting function where you can add keyword tags and get an email digest. And Categories to limit posts only Robotics or Show HN/PH as an example. So not quite what you’re going after, but maybe a better overall experience for you.
summonerOS
Thanks for sharing! Definitely like the ability to filter and incorporating multiple sources although from what I could see stories are all from HN. One thing I will say though is the UI is challenging to use on mobile, would recommend the layout used for things like comments that you see on Harmonic/lobst.er. Very nice project keep it up!
JCSlim
I’ve updated the RNKFlow.com filter to use a comma separated list of terms. Using a negative term will filter out stories you don’t want to see. If you sign in, you can save a default filter list and I’ve made it part of the free tier. Hope this helps a bit.
Ecys
Everything that's not AI is just irrelevant. AI is diverse enough to replace the other things you'd talk about.
maryamshafaqat
I miss the old look what someone built vibe too. There is still good stuff in Show HN threads but it does take more digging now than it used to.
andyjohnson0
> there seems to be an effect on HN whereby the AI hypetrain has essentially drowned out discussions of anything other than stories either directly or indirectly related to AI

As a data point, 7 out of the current‡ top 30 submissions are AI related - just under 25%. Doesn't doesn't seem that excessive to me.

‡ 2026-05-20 20:00 UTC

rhythmshahriar
Lobste.rs is worth trying. Invite only, which keeps the quality up, and the tag system lets you actually filter what you see. Much less AI noise in practice.
ra0x3
Can someone invite me to lobste.rs ? HN user since 2014. Would love to try something new :)

Email is on my profile

annagio_
Everything is pushy AI nowdays, and some people don't even realize it. Hacking with AI, tools with AI, AI agents and goes on. I for example, when I see AI, I don't even read them, easy as that. Wasn't an announcement No AI, couple months ago here?
ctdinjeu5
> What I would like instead is a return to the days when HN was a forum that still showcased cool things

As someone who used to share interesting projects, I stopped over the years due to mods favoring YC companies and hiding my work, and other bottom-feeders who were basically jealous trying to discourage me and downplaying the novel work I did.

I found places like HN and Reddit to only really approve of mainstream status quos and try their hardest to utterly destroy the reputation and confidence of any “indie” type who would ever dare to make anything cool.

I don’t even build up accounts here anymore, or do I attach my identity to stuff anymore too much.

By 2026 this censorship/hater problem is so bad it’s not worth sharing anything with anyone.

All I want to do now is figure out a way to destroy big tech and profit off their mistakes.

I want to eat academia alive and end college and classism. HN is not your friend but an enemy to be destroyed.