
Show HN: Nuclino – A unified real-time workspace for teams - bjoernm
https://www.nuclino.com/
======
aleo
Lovely design and ui, feels somewhat scandinavian. Lots of attention to
detail, very smooth experience. I wish it had more contrast though because it
makes me squint a little, if I had to use it every day I'd go crazy.

Can't edit item titles in place, I have to click item and then edit title in
editing area.

First cluster (uncategorized items) is not editable, not draggable, not
deletable - is this intentional? I guess it makes sense for uncategorized
stuff, but what if I don't need it? Bit annoying.

Graph view would make more sense if I could create nested clusters/items, but
since data is always one level deep I don't see why I would use it.

I like how search works very much.

Collaboration works very cool - I can see who edits which item at the moment.
The only thing I want here is to have a log of who edited what exactly in each
item.

Very positive impression overall.

That said, it doesn't make me want to switch from trello and I kinda hate
trello. I'll think about this and let you know if i come up with any specific
reason.

(this is my first review ever - was it helpful?)

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks a lot for your thoughtful review! Here's some feedback:

* Great to hear you like the design and UI! Contrast is not easy to get right with all the different screens and layouts, but we'll improve this.

* Editing the item title in place is planned.

* The current behavior of the uncategorized items is intentional, but as you noted it's not ideal and we're currently working on ways to improve it.

* We're already experimenting with different approaches to the graph visualization like visualizing the links between items. Stay tuned :)

* We're planning to add versioning, which will allow you to retrace how the content evolved.

It would be very interesting to us if you come up with a specific reason.
Don't hesitate to contact me directly :)

~~~
JasonSage
I very much agree about the contrast issue. On my Mac it's great but if I plug
in a less-than-perfect monitor it's too hard to look at.

Your product has a great look and feel, looks very polished overall!

~~~
bjoernm
We'll definitely work on the contrast issue and test it on more screens! Happy
to hear you like the look and feel of the product :)

------
danr4
Your pricing page is tucked away at the bottom. It's one of the first pages I
go to, and hiding it like that makes me think you're trying to trick me.

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks for the feedback! Definitely not planning to trick anybody, we’re just
trying to keep the top navigation simple. We’re actually also considering
moving the blog and support links to the footer. But we’ll keep an eye on it!

~~~
codegeek
Please listen to the GP. Pricing needs to be in the top menu and not hidden
away in footer. You will lose tons of prospects because they will think
pricing is not transparent. I thought the same until I scrolled down to the
bottom.

------
bjoernm
Hi all! We're building Nuclino, a unified workspace for teams. Here's why you
should check it out:

* You can replace several collaboration tools with Nuclino as it combines the best ideas from many! (e.g. the board from Trello, real-time editing from Google Docs, internal links from wikis)

* Real-time collaborative editor with markdown commands

* Visualize your data with different views such as lists, boards, and graphs

You can use it to plan and track sprints, collaborate on requirements, share
ideas, goals and more.

It's been working out great for ourselves and our first users, but we'd love
to get feedback from a wider audience. If you don't mind a couple rough edges
and missing features, it would be awesome if you could check it out and tell
us what you think!

~~~
Ralfp
Looking good, but working in advertisement I've got small nitpick:

[https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/e59309758061057655df10...](https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/e59309758061057655df10f5e6ff66cf26f44d39/a120d/img/solution.png)

I would check with your legal if its all right to use competitors branding in
your advertising. Depending on way this branding is presented (or not) it's
either trademark violation, violation of laws forbidding direct comparisons
with other brands (hence "better than leading product" in ads) or grounds for
libel damages.

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks a lot for this hint, we’ll review it!

------
dyeje
I was tasked with finding an internal knowledge base solution for our small
development team last year. I stumbled across Nuclino and we've been very
happy users since last December.

I think what makes it so great is just the pure simplicity. I absolutely hate
dealing with all the cruft of Wikis and similar solutions. With Nuclino we
just go and write the information down without all the hassle.

Couldn't recommend it more, keep up the good work.

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks for the kind words! The complexity of traditional wikis inspired us to
build Nuclino. We definitely plan to keep the experience as smooth and simple
as possible :)

~~~
type0
Let's say a team signs up with your service and after a couple of years
requirements change and they want to migrate. What are the formats that one
could export the data?

~~~
bjoernm
Currently it is possible to export a whole workspace in the Markdown format.
The downloaded .zip file contains all exported items including attachments
such as images and files in a separate folder.

We are also thinking about adding HTML as an export format if there is any
interest. What format would you expect as an export option?

~~~
omeid2
Anything that is properly parsable, including relations and references. So
HTML with proper semantics and ids would be good!

------
boyd
Product looks really fantastic, and it was nice to see returns and tabs
behaving as expected (feels snappy like a desktop app!).

It's also nice how escape gets you back to the search bar – I don't have
enough data to know how search prioritization scales, but feels really snappy
and nice so far.

One comment (admit this is a pet peeve) – it'd be really nice if Google and/or
Github SSO was available on any of the paid plans. As a buyer, I really don't
like having to choose between good security practice (and a bunch of features
that aren't needed for my small team) vs. a lower price. Put differently, it's
a bummer that across a number of SaaS services the choice to use SSO - but few
or no other "enterprise" features - ends up costing tens of dollars per person
per month. :/

Edit: Also thank you, thank you, thank you for a nice table editor where I
don't have to do things by hand in markdown!

~~~
bjoernm
Hi boyd, that's a good point. We're considering to add certain SSO providers
like Google Suite to the basic plan and others like Active Directory to
premium. Glad you like the table editor!

------
dlss
I actually really like this idea, and almost clicked away before understanding
it. Maybe try describing it as "What if every Trello card had its own Google
Doc?"

(I'm sure you have other features, that was just the one that excited me
personally)

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks for the feedback! It actually sounds great the way you describe it,
we’re definitely gonna test it.

------
Gys
Looks interesting. The demo on the frontpage could use a bit more contrast.

The pricing model mentions 'Private workspaces'. Does that mean the free
option is visible to all visitors ?! If so then it should clearly mention
that...

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks for the feedback! The free option is not visible to all visitors, only
to your team. Private workspaces are meant for information which should not be
accessible by the entire team. You have to be invited to a private workspace
in order to view and edit the content. We'll try to explain this better on the
pricing page!

------
CodeWriter23
Honest feedback here, the choice to use the fade in effect on every single
element on the home page resulted in me leaking out of the funnel at the very
top. I just couldn't stand reading it, it was frustrating to swipe up a
screenful and have to pause to read. Please know I present this
constructively. Best of luck.

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks for the comment! We did not receive this feedback before, but we'll
test it with more users and check if it makes sense to adjust or remove the
animations.

------
dham
Noticed you are using Mobx. Awesome choice! Anyway looks nice so far. The
contrast of the site needs some help though.

~~~
sandGorgon
That's interesting. Normally we hear rhetoric that mobx is unsuitable for
complex webapps. What has been your experience vs redux ?

~~~
kiejo
At Nuclino we're very happy with MobX and I would say that it is definitely
suitable for complex projects and that it mostly depends on the overall
architecture that you choose. MobX is rather unopinionated and there are many
ways to work with it. You can even use it in a Redux style architecture if you
want! In the end it all depends on your requirements and preferences. For us,
choosing MobX was key to building Nuclino the way it is today as there are a
few key features which would have been much harder to build with Redux.

------
david_p
Great UI, great product. I'd use your product to replace prodpad.com anytime
:)

> We're already experimenting with different approaches to the graph
> visualization like visualizing the links between items.

Yes please! Being able to visualize links between items that I created would
be amazing.

Coloring items by cluster would be great too: I'd like to have different types
of items (some would represent customers, others features-requests, and I'd
like to be able to differentiate customers and feature-requests in the graph
visually while visualizing links among them).

------
rjvs
Like many here, I appreciate the design and feel of the product.

It looks like you're experimenting with a desktop app (although you don't
mention which platforms) is there any work on mobile apps? I couldn't find any
mention of them on your website.

Although the bulk of our Trello usage is on desktops, being able to access and
respond to notifications when away from the desk/office/laptop are deal
breakers for our team.

~~~
kiejo
Great to hear you like the design and feel of the product :) We're currently
beta testing a desktop app for Windows, MacOS, and Linux, but haven't started
work on a mobile app yet. Of course we see the value in mobile and we'll get
there eventually!

------
Oras
Having a features page to list features with screenshots will be helpful.

Out of interest, when did you start? I'm confused about "Join over 2000
teams".

~~~
bjoernm
Have you seen our product page
([https://www.nuclino.com/product](https://www.nuclino.com/product))? There
are screenshots and a video tour :)

We started about one and a half years ago, but just recently released a major
update introducing the board view and other essential features:
[https://blog.nuclino.com/the-new-nuclino](https://blog.nuclino.com/the-new-
nuclino)

------
peternicky
Really nice work. Are you familiar with Notion? I would love to hear your
pitch why I might want to use Nuclino instead of something like Notion.

~~~
kiejo
Thanks! There was a similar question with an answer a little further down the
comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14866580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14866580)

Hope this helps :)

------
dopeboy
Wild. If the founders are reading, I met one of your friends (significant
others?) in Bali in April.

Awesome work and hello from the States.

~~~
bjoernm
That is crazy! That must have been my girlfriend, can't wait to tell her.
Greetings back from Germany :)

~~~
ruleabidinguser
"Omg honey someone on the internet met you!"

------
mxuribe
The graph view on this is really awesome! Kudos guys on a neat product!

I would definitely recommend this for the workplace...however, for private
use, I've always been an advocate of self-hosted. Does anyone know of a
similar platform for single-person, self-hosted use-case?

------
crsv
Sorry for the existential question - but how do you guys not get disenchanted
in this space by the idea that if you actually manage to meaningfully
differentiate that you're surrounded by nimble giants that can easily mimic
your success and crush you?

~~~
bjoernm
We believe in what we do and so far we've not been able to find another
product with the same focus that builds upon the same principles and ideas.
Wanting Nuclino to exist and our passion to create it, is what drives us most.
As for competition from established players, I wholeheartedly agree with the
comment from davidjgraph. Every new startup faces this challenge, but history
shows that it can be difficult for large companies to mimic the success of new
products.

~~~
ttty
Anything more concrete?

------
desireco42
I like it. I like idea about it, there is definite need and I like what I've
seen so far.

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks! That's great to hear.

------
samat
Tried it some months ago and preferred Notion. Is there a comparison with pros
and cons?

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks for giving us a try! It would be awesome to hear more about your
experience. If you're up for a quick chat, just send me an email.

Obviously I'm highly biased regarding a direct comparison, but here are some
thoughts:

Overall we're trying to provide a simpler and faster experience. For example,
our editor is just a single stream of content blocks, providing consistency
and a fast editing experience. In Notion the editor has more complexity with
adjustable multi-column layouts, page header images, etc. If you don't require
those formatting options, I'd argue Nuclino is a better fit.

By providing different views on the same information, we also enable you to
use Nuclino for different use cases. For example, the list view allows you to
prioritize lots of items, the board view to track a workflow, and a graph view
to explore information.

------
JoshTriplett
[https://nuclino.com/](https://nuclino.com/) gives an expired SSL certificate
error. (Got there because I wound up on the blog, and wanted to get back, so I
edited the URL.)

~~~
kiejo
Thanks for reporting this! We're aware of the issue and will fix it as soon as
possible.

------
thirdsun
It looks promising. I really like the way you set your pricing tiers without
limiting the number of items / rows / entries available to the user.

However are there any plans for mobile apps? That's an important feature.

~~~
bjoernm
Even though we'd love to, we don't offer mobile apps yet. You can use Nuclino
in a mobile browser, but it's not something we've been focusing on. As far as
priorities go, we're currently focused on web and desktop first, but we'll
release mobile apps eventually.

------
sAbakumoff
Why is your product better than the atlassian stack - jira, bitbucket,
confluence?

~~~
bjoernm
Our main differentiators are simplicity, speed, and the fact that you only
need a single tool (not counting Bitbucket here).

We've seen that many teams don't need all the features the Atlassian stack
provides and happily trade it for a simpler, faster, and more unified
experience.

Feel free to try it out and see if it works for you and your team :)

~~~
jamesmcintyre
@bjoernm Nuclino is beautiful, reminds me of this (at the end):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4AXaFlIFQA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4AXaFlIFQA)

I love how you've enabled users to take down ideas in a very quick way without
forcing them to make decisions about what "category" or purpose the
information has at that moment and then they can freeform build on that
information to take it from something amorphous to something with utility.
This compliments the way humans actually tackle complex work.

Can't wait to see where Nuclino goes from here!

~~~
bjoernm
That's exactly the idea :) We don't want to impose structure before it
actually becomes useful. That's also why the most basic elements are called
"items", as their purpose can evolve into ideas, tasks, requirements, etc.

~~~
jamesmcintyre
Awesome! I reference this quote too much but I love it and I think it applies
here: "Design dissolving into behavior." \- Naoto Fukasawa

------
Dryken
Really smooth user experience and fair pricing. Still I find one negative
point that really makes it unusable for me : Content are only one level deep.

Unless I missed a feature allowing to nest content on multiple level ?

~~~
bjoernm
Thanks Dryken! Inside a workspace there is currently only one level of nesting
by using clusters. However, you can use internal links like in a wiki to
create index pages that build the structure you need with arbitrarily deep
nesting.

Generally, we're trying to keep the organisation flat as we've seen lots of
teams struggle with deeply nested information, e.g. in the context of huge
shared network drives. However, there are some cases where more nesting might
be useful and we're already trying out some ways to address that.

------
luxbock
Does it provide 2FA? I'm looking for a tool like this, but my company handles
a lot of sensitive material and so having 2FA is a hard requirement.

~~~
bjoernm
We're planning to add Google SSO which supports 2FA. Would that work for you?

------
BLP4YC
Does anybody know a tool to just build the graphs as in the tool?

------
SubiculumCode
Trying out right now. Looking for a chat feature? Or is that right on the
board?

I'm trying to resize a large picture on the board. Is possible?

~~~
bjoernm
There's no chat feature in Nuclino at the moment as most teams use it together
with a chat tool like Slack. But we're planning to add some lightweight
commenting soon.

Resizing a picture is not possible, but we're planning to add different size
options like full-width vs. normal-width for each image. Would that solve what
you're trying to achieve?

~~~
SubiculumCode
I was not sure if the board was more like a blank "powerpoint-like" space, or
if it was more linear, thus my question about resizing.

------
JoshTriplett
This does look a lot like a much better Trello.

Does this support import from Trello?

~~~
bjoernm
Glad you like it! Unfortunately we don't support importing from Trello yet. We
offer a generic import for HTML and Markdown, so if you can get the data out
of Trello that way you might be able to import it.

------
iRobbery
Consider hosting all web resources and dependencies on your own domain(s). I
don't need google, cloudfront etc etc to know i'm using a certain web
application. Certainly not if i was paying for it.

~~~
kiejo
Thanks for the feedback! This is the first time that we hear about this
concern, but we will look into it. Serving these kinds of resources (fonts,
icons) ourselves has a disadvantage in terms of caching, so we'll have to
decide if it's worth the trade-off.

~~~
iRobbery
I'm surprised to hear a webapp dev say it is the first time he hears about
leaking traffic to third parties. Kind of worrying.

~~~
kiejo
It's not that I haven't heard about leaking traffic to third parties before.
What I meant is that so far none of our users have complained about this being
a concern for them.

------
artur_makly
What was the tech-stack you used to build this?

~~~
kiejo
To give you a rough idea:

For the frontend we use React, MobX, ProseMirror, and Webpack.

The backend uses Node.js, Express, µWS, and Postgres.

~~~
Keats
Can I ask a bit more about ProseMirror? I am currently using a custom text
editor but was looking into potentially replacing it with editors like
ProseMirror, Slate.js

How easy is it to write custom plugins/behaviour? For example our tables are
much more complex than the ones from the default plugin, we have e-signature
etc.

I will have a look myself over the next weeks or so but wanted to get some
opinion on that!

~~~
kiejo
From my experience ProseMirror is not the easiest editor to get started with,
but it gives you a lot of power in terms of customization and flexibility.
Recently a more feature rich table module was released, which might come
closer to what you expect in case you haven't seen it yet:
[https://github.com/prosemirror/prosemirror-
tables](https://github.com/prosemirror/prosemirror-tables). Once you get the
hang of it, implementing custom plugins and behaviors is not that hard. There
will be a 1.0 release with more extensive documentation soon, which will make
it a lot easier to get started. You can find more information here:
[https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/planning-new-
documentation](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/planning-new-documentation).

Apart from that, the maintainer is very responsive and often times issues get
fixed in a matter of hours! And the community behind ProseMirror is very
helpful and seems to be steadily growing :)

~~~
Keats
Yep I've seen that table plugin (I guess it's the one used on Nuclino?) but
our tables are cost tables with calculations, currencies etc so it will
probably need to be its own plugin. I can probably base it off this though, it
looks better than ours.

Thanks for the reply, I guess I'll play with it once I manage to find some
time!

------
kensai
Been using it for some months now. Awesome!

