A convenient method to find alternatives to almost any popular open-source project

I've been improving the new version of LibHunt here and there for the last several months, and I think I've reached a reasonably presentable version. As a software dev myself, I'm looking for alternatives to the libraries I use quite often. Of course, I've been "eating my own dog food" and using LibHunt to find alternatives. What I had been doing is using the regular search function. I'd copy the name of the library from github, paste it in LibHunt's search box, and click on the first result in most cases. That has been working pretty well, yet it felt a bit cumbersome.

This morning I had the following idea. Given that most popular open-source projects are hosted GitHub, and I'm already tracking them, I could support a similar URL schema in LibHunt so that the only difference from GitHub is the domain name. I got it implemented, tested and deployed in less than half an hour. So simple, and it saves all the copy-pasting, clicking and searching.

Now, if you are looking for alternatives to a popular open-source project, I strongly believe that the quickest and most convenient solution is LibHunt.

All you have to do is:

1. Open a project on GitHub (e.g. https://github.com/facebook/react)
2. Replace "github" with "libhunt" in the URL
3. Hit enter 🚀

As of now, the lists with alternatives (and similar projects) on LibHunt are based on three factors:

1. The projects were mentioned on common posts on Reddit, HackerNews, and dev.to (mentions are monitored almost in real-time)
2. User suggested alternatives (directly on LibHunt)
3. Users comparing projects on LibHunt

Of course, these factors and methods are not perfect. However, they work pretty well in most cases. And as more people suggest alternatives and more posts from around the net are tracked, the quality of the lists will only improve.

I hope this will be helpful to many of you fellow devs.

Stan 🙇

p.s. as always, any feedback is highly appreciated.

Comments

[Piotr Stojanow]

It's my first time hearing about LibHunt, Stan. What a great tool!

I wrote this little bookmarklet to make it easier to replace "github" with "libhunt":

javascript:(function(){window.location.href = "https://libhunt.com"+window.location.pathname;})();

[Stan Bright]

Thanks mate!