What is a Show HN post?

A Show HN post is Hacker News's format for sharing something you built. Unlike regular links, Show HN invites the community to try the thing and give feedback. A good one leads with what it does and why you made it.

When is the best time to post to Show HN?

Tuesday through Thursday, 8-10am Eastern US time, tends to perform best. Avoid weekends (low traffic) and Monday mornings (noisy). Post once and engage genuinely in the comments.

How long should a Show HN title be?

Keep it under 80 characters so it is not truncated in lists. Lead with the product name and a one-clause description of what it does. Avoid hype words like 'revolutionary' or 'ultimate'.

How to Write a Show HN Post That Gets Upvotes & Users

A practical guide: title formulas, the opening line, posting time, and the comment strategy that turns Hacker News readers into users.

Free tool: check your Show HN title before you post

Paste your title and get instant feedback on length, structure, and hype-words — the same checklist this guide uses.

Open the Show HN Title Checker →

In this guide

1. The title formula
2. The opening line
3. When to post
4. The comment that converts
5. Mistakes that kill Show HN posts
6. Pre-post checklist

A Show HN post is one of the few ways a small project can reach thousands of technical people in a single day — for free. But most Show HN posts die quietly. The difference between a post that hits the front page and one that gets two upvotes is almost always the writing, not the product. This guide covers what actually matters.

1. The title is 80% of the outcome

Hacker News readers scan a list of titles and decide in under a second whether to click. Your title has to tell them what the thing is and why it's interesting in one line — no hype, no mystery.

The formula that works:

Show HN: [Product Name] – [what it does] [the one thing that's different]

Show HN: My new project (check it out!)

Show HN: Revolutionary AI-powered productivity platform

Show HN: Shipler – Run your test suite across 5 Node versions at once

Show HN: I built a free tool that scores your cold emails before you send

Rules that hold up across thousands of posts:

Lead with what it does, not what it is. "Runs tests in parallel" beats "A testing framework".
Under 80 characters so it isn't truncated in the list view.
No hype words. "Revolutionary", "ultimate", "game-changing", "AI-powered" (unless AI is genuinely the mechanism) all correlate with downvotes.
Use "I built" sparingly and honestly. It signals a real person made a real thing. Don't overuse it.

2. The first comment (your opening line)

On Show HN, the author's first comment is part of the post. It's where you explain what you built, why, and what feedback you want. Write it before you post.

A strong opening comment has three parts:

What it is in one sentence (the same as your title, expanded).
Why you built it — the specific problem you hit. Honesty here builds trust.
What you'd like feedback on — pricing, UX, a specific feature, performance. A concrete ask gets better comments.

Hi HN, I built Shipler because our CI was taking 14 minutes on a large Node monorepo and every existing solution either cost a lot or needed heavy config. It detects your test runner and splits the suite across Node 18/20/22/23/24 in parallel — typical drop is to ~3 minutes with zero config. I'd love feedback on the auto-detection (does it pick up your runner correctly?) and whether the per-version matrix is worth keeping vs. just parallelism within one version. Pricing is pay-what-you-want for solo devs.

3. When to post

Hacker News traffic is highest during US weekday mornings. The conventional wisdom, backed by most analyses of front-page posts:

Best days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Best time: 8:00–10:00 AM Eastern (US).
Avoid: weekends (low traffic), Monday morning (noisy), Friday afternoon (dead).
Post once. Deleting and reposting is flagged and hurts you.

You only get one real shot per project. Don't waste it on a half-finished product or a bad title.

4. The comment strategy that converts

Upvotes get you visibility; comments get you users. The first hour matters most. Be online, refresh, and reply to every comment within minutes.

Reply to criticism first, not praise. The skeptics are the ones whose minds you can change — and other readers watch how you handle pushback.
Be specific. "Good point, we're fixing that now — here's the issue: [link]" beats "Thanks for the feedback!"
Don't be defensive. If someone calls your thing simple, explain the tradeoff you made. Simplicity is often a feature.
Answer "how does it compare to X?" honestly. Name the competitor and the real difference. Readers respect it and it pre-empts the inevitable comparison thread.

5. Mistakes that kill Show HN posts

Mystery titles. "You won't believe what I built" gets you ignored, not curious.
Asking friends to upvote. HN's anti-manipulation detects coordinated voting and penalizes or shadowbans the post. Earn it organically.
Posting then leaving. If you're not around for the first 2 hours, you lose the comment momentum that drives the algorithm.
Marketing speak in the comment. "Disrupting the space" and "world-class" read as spam. Plain English wins.
No clear ask. "Check it out" gets nothing. "I'd love feedback on the onboarding flow" gets targeted, useful comments.

6. Pre-post checklist

Title under 80 chars, leads with what it does, no hype words.
First comment written: what, why, what feedback you want.
Posting Tuesday–Thursday, 8–10 AM ET.
Site/demo loads fast and works on mobile.
You'll be online and replying for at least 2 hours after posting.
Pricing or "how is this free?" question pre-answered in the comment.

Test your title before you post

Run your Show HN title through the free checker — it flags length, hype words, and structure issues using the same rules above.

Check my title (free) → Get the launch prompt pack →

Written 2026-07-17. Practical guidance for founders and developers launching on Hacker News.