Ask HN: What small webapps do you know that have a large audience? - thinkpozzitive
======
DotSauce
[http://preev.com/](http://preev.com/)

[http://gifcountdown.com/](http://gifcountdown.com/)

[http://www.convertico.com/](http://www.convertico.com/)

[http://pastebin.com/](http://pastebin.com/)

[http://www.bustaname.com/](http://www.bustaname.com/)

~~~
c16
+1 to Bustaname.com, it's a great tool for finding domain names and one I have
found to be invaluable.

~~~
harvestmoon
Bustaname is pretty nifty and useful. I'm also a fan of Namebird, a name
generator that uses probability algorithms to make names that are catchy and
memorable [http://shobia.com/namebird](http://shobia.com/namebird) (and only
partly because I made it!)

~~~
corobo
I keep seeing this plugged (by yourself actually.. :P )

I think it definitely needs a tutorial or walkthrough of some sort. I only
ever get dodgy looking words that aren't memorable in any sense, in fact would
be extremely difficult to say over the phone. I am guessing it's the way I'm
using it but I don't know any better! :)

~~~
harvestmoon
Hehe, launching something new you made is hard/takes persistence. Hope I'm not
being annoying; seemed to be appropriate here and the other time I mentioned
it in a comment on HN.

Sorry to hear that. There actually is a tutorial/guide referenced a bit lower
on the page but not many people seem to see it, may need to emphasize it more!

Maybe try the basic word maker to make words starting with 'arb,' 'orb' or
'mar'? I've found the words those generate are fairly nice as an idea for what
it can do. Also maybe try shorter words?

Dunno. To be honest, having used the other name generation tools, this is the
one I'd use to get a new domain name and a good amount of people have found
names they like through Namebird (someone put in starts with 'pay' and got
paydrow for instance and I used it to name itself too :P).

~~~
corobo
No no not annoying at all! If anything I'm annoyed (extremely mildly, mind) at
myself because I'm not managing to get it :)

It looks like a really good tool if (and I'm assuming it does for others) it
works nicely, I'm just missing that moment of 'click' right now where I grasp
how it works. Going by what you've said I think I was more using it as "here's
a word, do more with it please website robot" \- I'll have another play! :)

------
coderholic
[http://ipinfo.io](http://ipinfo.io) API gets ~300M requests per month

------
tamedo
[http://pinboard.in](http://pinboard.in)

~~~
daphneokeefe
I love pinboard! I started out with delicious until it got bought and got
weird, then I moved to Google bookmarks but it's so crude. I need something
that follows me on every machine. The magick is in being able to add tags.

~~~
akos
I'm so curious.. I don't use pinboard, but everyone says it's awesome. What's
so good in it?

~~~
modarts
I've wondered the same.. I actually subscribed to see what the hype was about;
after using it for a few weeks I found it hard to justify the cost for such a
simple and relatively featureless webapp

~~~
sireat
I actually gave up just a few weeks ago on Delicious (I have 15k+ bookmarks
there, but it gets too slow too often) and moved to Pinboard.

Exporting from Delicious into Pinboard was done in a few minutes.

Pinboard is just like Delicious but faster and more responsive, I am willing
to pay $10.61 for that.

And I actually paid for archive option not because I particularly need it but
because I like the idea of supporting a lean one person operation.

Only thing Pinboard is missing(just like Delicious is missing) is quick
filling in of suggested tags.

Also, for some reason Pinboard suggests IFTTT tag almost every time. I only
use IFTTT sparingly.

------
thejosh
[http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat](http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat) is a TV
calendar I have been using for like 7 years, damn thing is great.

Not sure of their exact traffic but it's pretty popular.

~~~
SchizoDuckie
It's pretty neat :) I'm building one myself, about 20k users atm. (more
targeted at getting to the content though)

[http://schizoduckie.github.io/DuckieTV/](http://schizoduckie.github.io/DuckieTV/)

~~~
Fogest
I'd host those images on something other than Imgur, some of the images there
are missing.

~~~
SchizoDuckie
Thanks for the heads up! We recently swapped out some images that are now not
under my private account

------
folz
[http://strawpoll.me/](http://strawpoll.me/) \- create simple straw polls that
anyone can answer at a unique link. Every game streamer I watch uses it daily.
Dead simple to use and a memorable name.

~~~
ams6110
I like that... and I would use it if it allowed the voter to enter their name
so I could see who had chosen which response.

------
pgbovine
[http://pythontutor.com/](http://pythontutor.com/) (my webapp) very small
footprint ... just a single simple CGI script. but pulls in 6,000 - 10,000
uses per day. not "large" by commercial standards, but not bad for a free tool
made by a single person.

~~~
tomaskafka
Cool! This reminds me of an object graph visualizer my friend Martin have
written for SharpDevelop long time ago:
[http://community.sharpdevelop.net/blogs/martinkonicek/archiv...](http://community.sharpdevelop.net/blogs/martinkonicek/archive/2011/06/04/debugger-
visualizers-for-sharpdevelop.aspx)

------
dhaivatpandya
[http://sleepyti.me](http://sleepyti.me) \- simple concept, simple
implementation, lots of users.

~~~
throwaway3453
Shameless plug, [http://jollynap.com](http://jollynap.com)

It's the same formula SleepyTime uses, in a mobile friendly format.

~~~
tpg
The two appear to get different results. To get up at 7:00 AM, sleepyti.me
says to go to sleep at 10:00 PM, whereas jollynap says to go to bed at 10:45
PM. Obviously the latter is taking 15 minutes into account for falling asleep,
but it's still an hour difference.

~~~
throwaway3453
SleepyTime mentions, "The average adult human takes fourteen minutes to fall
asleep..." so I compensate with 15 minutes in the calculation. There shouldn't
be any major variance. Perhaps an odd calculation with Daylight Savings?

------
nelse
[http://www.worldtimebuddy.com](http://www.worldtimebuddy.com)

~~~
binwiederhier
Use it all the time. Great tool!

~~~
kinlan
This would be great if it worked on mobile (I.e not desktop optimized)

~~~
kalleboo
I agree about the lack of mobile web site, but I broke my resistance and the
official iOS app is good (there's an Android one too)

------
bsilvereagle
[http://mathb.in](http://mathb.in)

Math pastebin with LaTeX/HTML/Markdown mashup.

------
stevephillips
[http://www.workflowy.com](http://www.workflowy.com) is very popular and one
of my favorite apps

~~~
rsivapr
I love workflowy, but it's definitely not a "small" web app.

------
icco
[http://everytimezone.com](http://everytimezone.com)

~~~
quinndupont
Maybe not as pretty, but more customizable
[http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/](http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/)

------
vld
[http://ip-api.com/](http://ip-api.com/) ~400m requests/month

~~~
ajankovic
What technique do they use to obtain "Internal IP"?

~~~
tkmcc
It's done using WebRTC: [https://github.com/beefproject/beef/wiki/Module:-Get-
Interna...](https://github.com/beefproject/beef/wiki/Module:-Get-Internal-IP-
WebRTC)

------
avirambm
[http://doodle.com](http://doodle.com)

~~~
rattray
[http://when2meet.com](http://when2meet.com) as well

~~~
reledi
I've been looking for a Doodle replacement. This looks promising.

------
lifethinkist
Productivity web apps that I have used:

\- Carbon Fin Outliner (Outliner) -
[https://cfoutliner.appspot.com/](https://cfoutliner.appspot.com/)

\- Writebox (Dropbox Text Editor) - [https://write-
box.appspot.com/](https://write-box.appspot.com/)

\- Toodledo (Tasks, Notes, etc) -
[http://www.toodledo.com/](http://www.toodledo.com/)

\- Textdrop App (Dropbox Text Editor)-
[https://www.textdropapp.com](https://www.textdropapp.com)

------
gableroux
[http://sebastianpontow.de/css2compass/](http://sebastianpontow.de/css2compass/)

Nice tool to convert css into scss, a bit like
[http://js2coffee.org](http://js2coffee.org) (which has probably even more
audience)

Would be nice to see css2compass as a node module like js2coffee does, we
should tweet the author about this.

Very usefull tool. I dont know the analytics for those, but I use them almost
everyday ;)

------
tlongren
Launched [https://passwds.io](https://passwds.io) a few days ago and it's
gotten 500 uniques every day since it's launch. By no means large, but growing
every day. :)

And just made a new blog post about plans for passwds.io, like opening up the
source: [https://longren.io/introducing-passwds-
io/](https://longren.io/introducing-passwds-io/)

------
fowkswe
I'd love to know what kind of numbers
[http://bigassmessage.com/](http://bigassmessage.com/) sees.

~~~
puredemo
That Magic theme is going to kill someone with epilepsy.

~~~
EpicDavi
Jesus Christ, there really needs to be a warning on that.

------
palcu
[http://idonethis.com/](http://idonethis.com/) is a simple idea that lots of
people use.

~~~
tekacs
Their [integrations][1] are pretty nice, too. Command line support! :)

[1]: [https://idonethis.com/apps-integrations/](https://idonethis.com/apps-
integrations/)

------
droopyEyelids
Cookie Clicker

[http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/](http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/)

------
timtas
[http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/](http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/)
\- URL encoder/decoder

[http://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/](http://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/)
\- JSON formatter

[http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-
editor/](http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/) \- Gradient generator

[http://mp3cut.net/](http://mp3cut.net/) \- MP3 cutter

[http://ipinfo.io/](http://ipinfo.io/) \- Geo from IP as JSON

[http://www.usdebtclock.org/](http://www.usdebtclock.org/) \- US Debt clock

[http://ifttt.com](http://ifttt.com) \- General purpose web robot

------
gabemart
What counts as a large audience?

100k monthly uniques? 1 million? 10 million?

~~~
thinkpozzitive
I would think that for a small web app 100K a month would probably be the
starting threshold. (maybe even 50K if it's < 6 months old)

------
tjazo
[http://naymit.com/](http://naymit.com/)

In many regions of the world, navigation devices only locate a fraction of
buildings by their street address. Naymit lets you mark, share and find exact
locations.

~~~
dalek2point3
I'm intrigued -- what countries are we talking about?

~~~
tjazo
From my own experience at least most countries in Western Balkans and Middle
East. I imagine things are even worse in Africa or India.

------
ninjakeyboard
not huge but jsonprettyprint.com gets 20k hits a month.
[http://www.similarweb.com/website/jsonprettyprint.com](http://www.similarweb.com/website/jsonprettyprint.com)

------
instakill
I'd imagine jsfiddle.

~~~
rattray
I'm not sure what counts as "small", but I can't imagine they have very few
LOC...

------
nhoven
[http://imgur.com/](http://imgur.com/) comes to mind, though its scope has
obviously seen a vast increase from when it first appeared

~~~
drham
Given that they raised $40mm[1] earlier this year not sure they really fit in
this list.

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/03/imgur-the-startup-that-
doe...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/03/imgur-the-startup-that-doesnt-need-
funding-closes-40m-from-reddit-andreessen-horowitz/)

------
clone1018
[https://minotar.net](https://minotar.net) does about 4 billion requests every
month. About 15 million unique "visitors".

------
paulirish
Etherpad : real-time collaborative text editor. Readable URLs so great for
instantly getting people together on a doc.
[http://etherpad.org/](http://etherpad.org/) is the project site but a
commonly used hosted one is at
[https://etherpad.mozilla.org/](https://etherpad.mozilla.org/)

------
RealGeek
[http://www.ranksignals.com](http://www.ranksignals.com)

Used by over 50,000 internet marketers every month.

------
sergiotapia
[http://www.smitecamp.com/](http://www.smitecamp.com/)

A really simple Rails CRUD app where 90% of the time was spent inputting data
and making it look nice. We average about 500 daily uniques and pay for it
purely by advertising revenue (lol - "revenue"). It pays for itself and is a
nice resume-booster.

------
cageface
Interesting to consider that the vast majority of these apps could be
implemented as well or better as mobile apps. I'm on record as being a skeptic
of the "mobile is eating the world" meme but I do expect a lot of these kinds
of smaller, more specialized apps will migrate to the computers we carry with
us everywhere.

~~~
zwass
Looking at the top-voted examples here, I would entirely disagree. They seem
to mostly be utilities that would be used while in the process of doing other,
more involved work.

For those apps that are useful on mobile, what advantage would they gain by
being developed as mobile apps? In their current states they work on nearly
every system commonly in use in the world, including all of the popular mobile
platforms.

------
sgrove
[http://jsonip.com/](http://jsonip.com/) has quite a bit of traffic

------
the_cat_kittles
[http://www.metronomeonline.com/](http://www.metronomeonline.com/)

------
dpcan
[http://www.leandomainsearch.com](http://www.leandomainsearch.com)

------
mikesabat
[http://www.boomeranggmail.com/](http://www.boomeranggmail.com/) I feel like
half the people I talk to at work use Boomerang for gmail. They seem small
because I don't see a footprint online or much marketing from them.

------
agilebyte
[http://scrumy.com/](http://scrumy.com/) \- scrum board

~~~
JohnHaugeland
I keep reading this as "screw me"

which, you know, with scrums, kind of makes sense

------
jonobird1
[https://targeted.io](https://targeted.io) \- Email testing, made by two
developers. 200% growth per month. Not large in commercial standards but still
large amount of users for a two man team.

------
eugeneionesco
[http://devdocs.io/](http://devdocs.io/)

------
moveelo
DoCapture got 20,000 uniques the first two days. Not much but still hitting a
few hundred daily
[http://skakunmedia.com/docapture/](http://skakunmedia.com/docapture/)

------
nicky0
[http://timertab.com](http://timertab.com)

------
sjs382
[http://aboutbrowser.com](http://aboutbrowser.com) \-- share browser details
via a link or email. Enables better troubleshooting than "What browser are you
using?"

------
chintan39
[http://birthde.com](http://birthde.com)

------
hu_me
[http://utm.io](http://utm.io)

url shortener with builtin support for google analytics link tagging utm
parameters. time saver for marketers creating tracking links for google
analytics.

~~~
okbake
Seems like a cool idea, though all I'm getting is a directory listing when I
visit the site.

~~~
hu_me
sorry about that I thought sun night would be a good time to move to heroku.
should be resolved now.

------
nlivingstone
[http://codepen.io](http://codepen.io)

------
humbyvaldes
[http://ownzee.com](http://ownzee.com)

------
philjackson
[http://yipgo.com](http://yipgo.com)

~~~
binwiederhier
This looks intriguing, but as usual not enough information on the site. And
I'm not willing to sign up after having seen only 2 tiny screenshots.

------
reledi
[http://www.gistboxapp.com](http://www.gistboxapp.com) \- lets you add
metadata to your GitHub gists (e.g. labels) and the search is much better

------
akos
SunCalc is a little app that shows sun movement and sunlight phases during the
given day at the given location.

[http://suncalc.net/](http://suncalc.net/)

------
Rondom
Umap: [https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/](https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/)

Easily create custom maps showing distances, areas, points/pins, heatmaps...

------
gorkemcetin
Open source mobile analytics & push notifications -
[http://count.ly](http://count.ly) \- more than 2000+ servers running
worldwide

------
JeanPol
[http://socialairways.com/](http://socialairways.com/) Is a nice application
that connects people who are on the same flight.

------
mattlondon
[http://standardjavascript.info](http://standardjavascript.info)

Great when I just cant remember the syntax for non-jQuery things in pure
javascript!

------
wenderen
[http://universalscrobbler.invitationstation.org](http://universalscrobbler.invitationstation.org),
a manual scrobbler for last.fm

------
codes_for_food
[http://www.sharedcount.com/](http://www.sharedcount.com/)

According to their Twitter, their API serves more than 1 billion requests per
month.

------
galfarragem
[http://www.tubalr.com/](http://www.tubalr.com/)

Probably not a large audience but very useful: one mouse click and you are
listening music.

------
archagon
[http://feedbin.me](http://feedbin.me)

As with Pinboard, it became popular in the vacuum following the implosion of a
large, centralized service.

------
no_gravity
Would be interesting if we could share some actual numbers.

[http://www.music-map.com](http://www.music-map.com) has about 100k monthly
users.

~~~
umenline
What this app suppose to do ? And from where you take the data ?

~~~
no_gravity
It shows bands on a map. Organized by taste. The data comes from
[http://www.gnoosic.com](http://www.gnoosic.com)

------
Vekz
[http://www.checkiday.com/](http://www.checkiday.com/) shows you what obscure
holidays are happening every day.

------
cplease
Craigslist.

------
jipumarino
[http://escaladenotas.cl](http://escaladenotas.cl)

300K users per month, 600K in June and November, mainly Chilean teachers.

------
girishso
[http://tweetd.com](http://tweetd.com)

[http://fa2png.io/](http://fa2png.io/)

------
drewvolpe
[http://doodle.com/](http://doodle.com/) \- Very simple way to pick a time for
a meeting

------
vvpan
Not sure if it's small enough:
[https://www.toggl.com/](https://www.toggl.com/)

------
zerr
Interesting, how do you explore these apps? Personally, I've never heard about
any of apps mentioned so far.

EDIT:

>You mean how do people find out about these apps?

Yes.

~~~
icco
What do you mean by "explore"? You mean how do people find out about these
apps? Usually word of mouth, online forums, stuff like that.

Even five years ago, the global programming community wasn't that large. If
someone built something small and useful, and they promoted it in their local
community (like at a LUG, Perl Mongers, other meetup) they gained decent usage
and exposure.

------
gauravgupta
[https://clippod.com](https://clippod.com) \- Great social plugin for Google
Calendar.

------
tonetheman
[http://fridaysuntil.com](http://fridaysuntil.com)

Not really a large audience. :)

------
chadscira
[http://img42.com](http://img42.com) (temporary image hosting)

------
dylanhassinger
[http://www.joesgoals.com/](http://www.joesgoals.com/)

------
jayeola
[http://www.yamllint.com/](http://www.yamllint.com/)

------
tiffani
[http://getbarometer.com/](http://getbarometer.com/)

------
kaushalp88
[http://isebolanear.me/](http://isebolanear.me/)

~~~
aabaker99
I'm in Houston and it's only 250 miles to Dallas and yet,

"You are 706.93 miles away from Ebola at Emory University Hospital! Stay
safe!"

~~~
JohnMunsch
That's 100% correct, eight days ago there were zero active cases of Ebola in
Dallas. The two active cases since the first one had been shipped out to other
cities and they were just on watches for the remaining exposures.

------
albumedia
[https://jamaicanize.com](https://jamaicanize.com)

------
chrismdp
[http://pininthemap.com](http://pininthemap.com)

------
haidrali
[http://www.hurl.it/](http://www.hurl.it/)

------
koberstein
[https://icomoon.io/](https://icomoon.io/)

------
binarydreams
[http://cssdeck.com](http://cssdeck.com)

------
eugene_pirogov
[http://time.is](http://time.is)

------
edpichler
What can we consider a large audience? One million users?

~~~
thinkpozzitive
100K bottom threshold, 50K if < 6 months old

------
swanson
[https://bufferapp.com/](https://bufferapp.com/)

[https://knowyourcompany.com/](https://knowyourcompany.com/)

------
agbonghama
Cool list of small webapps.page bookmarked.

------
ep103
newguid.com

------
talles
dinopass.com

------
thilokonzok
teuxdeux

------
bobosha
doodle.io

------
sagarjauhari
Any.do

------
jarnix
twitter

------
redmattred
Yo

------
twixter
The only example I can think of is HN.

It's probably the only example I can conceive of existing, too, since it's in
a pretty unique position of being cheap to serve and indefinitely funded
(hence not under pressure to grow, monetize, or advertise to cover costs).

~~~
zubairq
nemcv.com

~~~
malditojavi
bookmarking this

