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Ask HN: Is there a truly solid low-code to build Twitter or Reddit clone?

21 pointsby node-bayareaalmost 3 years ago
Hi there, I&#x27;d like to build a full featured Reddit or Twitter clone with most of the common functionality. The requirement I have is that it needs to be production-ready. I also need things like image uploading, plans, stripe integration etc. Is there a low-code solution that you think that&#x27;d help me build the frontend and the backend? I just can&#x27;t find something that can really help with both frontend and backend.<p>I&#x27;m thinking something like retool (frontend) and firebase (backend) combo. Is that that route I should take?<p>EDIT: Just to give some more context as people were asking: The features I&#x27;m looking to have are: Nothing really special but here are some requirements.<p>1. Allow people to login using LinkedIn, Twitter, or Gmail. 2FA auth. 2. Allow people to post news articles, comment on others, upvote, downvote. - Have nested comments 3. Scan for NSFW images and bad words to hide them. 4. Admin tasks: remove, block, throttle spam (as much as possible) 5. Have people and company profile page (similar to what you see on Twitter) - Have some special sections on those profile pages to allow folks to have links (CTAs) to things they care about.<p>6. Verify people for authenticity. --- Engage folks --- 1. Show Trending topics, send emails, send other notifications to get people to engage.<p>--- business side--- Allow companies&#x2F;people to login, pay and ad display ads to show up on different places on the app.

16 comments

bartmikaalmost 3 years ago
There was an article [0] a while back on Reddit of someone creating a clone using <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bubble.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bubble.io</a> for the frontend. Might be a useful to investigate. Good luck!<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;nocode&#x2F;comments&#x2F;oxsaet&#x2F;i_built_a_reddit_clone_in_2_weeks_using_bubble&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;nocode&#x2F;comments&#x2F;oxsaet&#x2F;i_built_a_re...</a>
daenzalmost 3 years ago
&gt;Reddit or Twitter clone<p>You&#x27;re talking about two fundamentally very different products with very different usage patterns. It would be helpful to hear what features you are looking for from each product and how you expect users to interact with it.
r721almost 3 years ago
Some open source reddit alternatives:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;LemmyNet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;LemmyNet</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;postmill&#x2F;Postmill" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;postmill&#x2F;Postmill</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Phuks-co&#x2F;throat" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Phuks-co&#x2F;throat</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ruqqus&#x2F;ruqqus" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ruqqus&#x2F;ruqqus</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Aevann1&#x2F;rDrama" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Aevann1&#x2F;rDrama</a>
WalterGRalmost 3 years ago
A related submission from today:<p>&quot;I built a Reddit clone in 2 weeks using Bubble: nocode&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=31555438" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=31555438</a>
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lohalmost 3 years ago
Check out Molecule.dev.<p>It has basically everything you&#x27;re requesting - both front-end and back-end, image uploads, authentication (and OAuth login via Twitter, Google, etc.), user plans&#x2F;subscriptions, Stripe integration, cross-platform support with Apple Pay and Google Pay, push notifications, emails, documentation, unit tests, etc. And after some minor setup, it&#x27;s immediately ready for you to publish to app stores if you wish to do so, with thorough step-by-step instructions on how to set it all up.<p>I should also note that it isn&#x27;t a framework, so you&#x27;re not locked into learning some specific way of doing things. It assembles full-stack codebases using tools and libraries most developers are already familiar with, so you&#x27;ll have full control over everything. It is designed for teams, startups, and indie devs to quickly build and scale.<p>You&#x27;d still need to implement custom functionality like voting and reposting yourself, however.<p>Disclaimer: I&#x27;m the creator of Molecule.dev.
anamaxalmost 3 years ago
&gt; The requirement I have is that it needs to be production-ready.<p>At what scale?
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dismantlethesunalmost 3 years ago
Reddit is just a forum with a non chronological sort. The entirety of the voting code can be a one liner. Adding upvote buttons is also a one liner.<p>It’s pretty easy to do the Reddit MVP but all the stuff they added later on is a major project. That includes their gamification, avatars, spam code, moderation, wiki, chat, private forums, etc.<p>As for Twitter, the east part is making it. The hard part is making the backend scale. Even Twitter inc. itself took months to make it scale (remember the “fail whale”?).
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ac132almost 3 years ago
Sticker Mule built a social network from scratch<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stimulus.com&#x2F;stickermule" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stimulus.com&#x2F;stickermule</a>
TameAntelopealmost 3 years ago
I’m honestly surprised nobody’s taken the bait here; the answer is a resounding and emphatic no.<p>You need a team (multiple teams, really) of developers to build and maintain the set of functionality on either Twitter or Reddit.<p>One 10x dev could probably get something going to kickstart fundraising, but to reach true feature parity, you’re talking multiple teams of engineers executing months (if not years) of work.
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marbanalmost 3 years ago
Created <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;biztoc.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;biztoc.com</a> on GCP from scratch — As with most ready-made stuff, it would have been too much hassle to tweak thing in the long run. Spam detection in the likes of Reddit is probably the only thing I would resort to a third party solution.
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chrisgomanalmost 3 years ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;nocode&#x2F;comments&#x2F;oxsaet&#x2F;i_built_a_reddit_clone_in_2_weeks_using_bubble&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;old.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;nocode&#x2F;comments&#x2F;oxsaet&#x2F;i_built_a_re...</a>
sideprojectalmost 3 years ago
I created Newsy to make use of my un-used domain names and turn them into Reddit-like content aggregators.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newsy.co" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newsy.co</a><p>It has all the features you are looking for in a content aggregator&#x2F;curation tool (and some more).
Margaret2021almost 3 years ago
Thanks for sharing!
moneywoesalmost 3 years ago
retool + bubble for frontend?
kojeovoalmost 3 years ago
maybe vbulletin
zorralmost 3 years ago
At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion: IMHO the best nocode approach is to build a pitch deck, secure funding and hire developers to build it.<p>The features you are asking for are complex. Both Twitter and Reddit have spent years iterating with large development teams to get these features. And I don&#x27;t think nocode is ready yet for this complexity.<p>Even in &quot;highcode&quot; environments these things are not trivial to set up. Have a look at some open source twitter&#x2F;reddit clone codebases (which typically not even touch payments) and see how complex they are. Now imagine each of these components needs some more complexity on top to make it configurable through &quot;nocode&quot; platforms.
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