Lay a Show HN post on the bench and it comes apart into three parts: the title line, the first words the maker writes in the thread, and the link a reader clicks to try the thing. This teardown takes five developer tool launches that each passed 1,100 points and measures those three parts one by one, using the thread data from the Hacker News search API and the Show HN guidelines, both read on 12 November 2026.
These are winners picked after the fact, so they show what good parts look like, not a formula that makes a post rise. For the odds behind a typical launch, see our study of a year of Show HN scores.
The three parts and what the rules say about each
- P1 Title. It starts with "Show HN" and has to say what the thing is. The moderators' tips for Show HN warn that without a clear statement of what the project is or does, the discussion will consist of "I can't tell what this is".
- P2 First comment. The same tips ask for text giving the backstory and what is different about the project, posted with the submission or as a first comment. Since a 2026 edit, they also ask makers to write that text by hand, without an LLM.
- P3 Demo link. The guidelines say a Show HN is something people can try, ideally without signups or emails, and that blog posts, sign-up pages and landing pages are off topic.
Tray 1: instant.page, the title that names the result and the time
T1 Posted 9 February 2019 · 1,214 points · 337 comments
P1 Title
Show HN: Make your site's pages instant in one minute
The title is a promise with a cost attached: what you get (instant pages) and what it takes (one minute). No product name is needed to understand it.
P2 First comment
There was no text with the post. The maker's first reply came 34 minutes in, under a reader's comment, and it led with the catch: "The only downside is that you can expect twice the number of requests to your pages". They wrote 16 comments in the thread in all.
P3 Demo link
The link went to the project page, which today still opens with the one script tag to paste before the closing body tag and a copy button. The one-minute claim can be checked on the page itself.
Take from it: if the title promises a time, put the thing that takes that time at the top of the page it links to.
Tray 2: Redbean, the plain category and the late arrival
T2 Posted 26 February 2021 · 1,998 points · 249 comments
P1 Title
Show HN: Redbean - Single-file distributable web server
Name, then a plain category with one unusual property: a single file. A reader who has never heard of the name still knows what it is.
P2 First comment
No text again, and the maker's first reply came 217 minutes after posting, opening with "Author here." Ten minutes later they answered a comparison with numbers: "Redbean is a 128kb executable that runs on all platforms". They wrote 26 comments in the thread.
P3 Demo link
The link went to the project page on the maker's own site. It did not load from our server on 12 November 2026, so we do not describe it here; the thread is the record we checked.
Take from it: a late start in the thread did not sink it, but every answer that came carried a concrete figure.
Tray 3: Alacritty, the maker who showed up in five minutes
T3 Posted 6 January 2017 · 1,170 points · 476 comments
P1 Title
Show HN: Alacritty, a GPU-accelerated terminal emulator written in Rust
Name, category, the one technical choice that sets it apart, and the language. Each word is a hook for a different reader.
P2 First comment
Five minutes after posting, the maker left a top-level comment: "I'm the author of Alacritty, and I'm here to answer any questions!" They went on to write 31 comments, the most of the five.
P3 Demo link
The link went to an announcement post that links the source on GitHub in its first lines. Under today's guidelines a blog post is off topic as a Show HN, so a launch like this now links the repository or a download.
Take from it: one early comment that says "I am here" sets up the thread, even when it carries no backstory.
Tray 4: InstantDB, the backstory written into the post
T4 Posted 22 August 2024 · 1,145 points · 297 comments
P1 Title
Show HN: InstantDB - A Modern Firebase
Name plus a comparison to a product every reader knows. It explains the category in three words and invites the obvious question: modern how?
P2 First comment
This is the one launch of the five with text in the post. It opens with who is speaking ("We're Joe and Stopa"), says what it is ("a client-side database that makes it easy to build real-time and collaborative apps like Notion and Figma"), names the problem, gives the makers' background and links two earlier essays, then shows a short chat app in code. The first reply from the poster came 78 minutes in; they wrote 21 comments.
P3 Demo link
The link went to the open source repository, which a reader can clone without signing up for anything.
Take from it: the post text answered the moderators' checklist in order: who, what, why, what is different, and how it looks in code.
Tray 5: Puter, the number in the title
T5 Posted 4 March 2024 · 1,274 points · 319 comments
P1 Title
Show HN: 3 years and 1M users later, I just open-sourced my "Internet OS"
The only title of the five built as a story: time spent, users reached, and the news of the day. The product name is not in it at all.
P2 First comment
No text. The maker's first reply came 19 minutes in, a short thank-you under a reader's praise, and the next one 42 minutes in answered a question about headsets. They wrote 10 comments, the fewest of the five.
P3 Demo link
The link went to the repository, whose README calls the project an open-source, self-hostable internet computer.
Take from it: a story title needs the link to do the explaining, because the title itself never says what the thing is.
The five side by side
| Launch | Title pattern | Text in post | First maker reply | Maker comments | Link to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| instant.page | Result plus time | No | 34 min | 16 | Project page |
| Redbean | Name plus category | No | 217 min | 26 | Project page |
| Alacritty | Name, category, tech | No | 5 min | 31 | Announcement post |
| InstantDB | Name plus comparison | Yes | 78 min | 21 | Repository |
| Puter | Story with numbers | No | 19 min | 10 | Repository |
First maker reply is the minutes from the post to the first comment by the submitting account, anywhere in the thread. Maker comments counts that account's comments in the thread as the search API returned it on 12 November 2026.
Two things hold across all five. Every title says what the thing is or what it does, except Puter, which leans on its link. And every maker stayed in the thread: between 10 and 31 comments each. What varies is everything people argue about: title length, a product name or not, text or no text, and how fast the first reply came.
Rebuild sheet: your own launch, part by part
- P1 Write the title as one of the patterns above, and check that a stranger can say what the thing is from the title alone. If it is a story title, make sure the link explains it.
- P2 Write the first text by hand: who you are, what it is in one sentence, why you built it, what is different, and one small example. Drop anything that sounds like marketing; the moderators' tips call that an instant turnoff.
- P2 Plan to be in the thread for the first hours. Answer with figures and admit the trade-offs before someone else finds them.
- P3 Link the thing itself: a page where it runs, a repository, a download. No signup wall, no waitlist, no landing page.
- P3 Do not ask friends to upvote or comment. The guidelines forbid it, and the tips say readers spot booster comments.
Questions about this teardown
Why these five launches?
They are the developer tools and platforms among the 60 top-ranked Show HN posts the search API returned on 12 November 2026, and each had a link a reader could follow. Games, hardware and art projects were left out to keep the parts comparable.
Does posting text with the link help?
Only one of the five did, so these launches cannot answer that. The moderators recommend it, and our year of Show HN data looks at posts with and without a link at scale.
Can I relaunch an old project as a Show HN?
The guidelines say new features and upgrades are generally not enough; a major overhaul probably is. The tips add that a repost should link the earlier Show HN and say what changed.
Sources
- Show HN Guidelines, Hacker News, read 12 November 2026.
- Tips for presenting a Show HN, Hacker News moderators, edited 28 March 2026, read 12 November 2026.
- Hacker News search API (Algolia): titles, points, comment counts, post text and comment times for items 19122727, 26271117, 13338592, 41322281 and 39597030, pulled 12 November 2026. Titles are quoted with plain hyphens.
- Demo links opened 12 November 2026: instant.page, Alacritty announcement, InstantDB repository, Puter repository. The Redbean page timed out from our server that day.
