The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
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Show HN: Cactus – Ollama for Smartphones
Hey HN, Henry and Roman here - we've been building a cross-platform framework for deploying LLMs, VLMs, Embedding Models and TTS models locally on smartphones.<p>Ollama enables deploying LLMs models locally on laptops and edge severs, Cactus enables deploying on phones. Deploying directly on phones facilitates building AI apps and agents capable of phone use without breaking privacy, supports real-time inference with no latency, we have seen personalised RAG pipelines for users and more.<p>Apple and Google actively went into local AI models recently with the launch of Apple Foundation Frameworks and Google AI Edge respectively. However, both are platform-specific and only support specific models from the company. To this end, Cactus:<p>- Is available in Flutter, React-Native & Kotlin Multi-platform for cross-platform developers, since most apps are built with these today.<p>- Supports any GGUF model you can find on Huggingface; Qwen, Gemma, Llama, DeepSeek, Phi, Mistral, SmolLM, SmolVLM, InternVLM, Jan Nano etc.<p>- Accommodates from FP32 to as low as 2-bit quantized models, for better efficiency and less device strain.<p>- Have MCP tool-calls to make them performant, truly helpful (set reminder, gallery search, reply messages) and more.<p>- Fallback to big cloud models for complex, constrained or large-context tasks, ensuring robustness and high availability.<p>It's completely open source. Would love to have more people try it out and tell us how to make it great!<p>Repo: <a href="https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus">https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus</a>
Show HN: Typeform was too expensive so I built my own forms
Hey HN,<p>I'm a solopreneur and run a web design agency.<p>I create open-source apps, but I also work as a freelancer and designer. I was accepting any new freelance project via forms on my agency website.<p>I was using Typeform, but as time went by and more people submitted forms, it got more and more expensive. That time, I thought to use Google Form, but it was way too blocky and looked very unprofessional on my agency website.<p>So I thought to build my own forms for my own usage, and it turns out it almost doubled form submissions and inquiry calls.<p>I was happy, so I thought to build it for everyone and make it open-source.<p>I added AI functionalities using Vercel AISDK. I can generate forms almost instantly using AI and also added analytics AI so that users can talk with their forms—more like talk with their analytics data.<p>I've been building this publicly, sharing updates on my X account (preetsuthar17)<p>I hope this product will be as helpful to you as it was for me. Would love your feedback pls<p>Preet
Show HN: Typeform was too expensive so I built my own forms
Hey HN,<p>I'm a solopreneur and run a web design agency.<p>I create open-source apps, but I also work as a freelancer and designer. I was accepting any new freelance project via forms on my agency website.<p>I was using Typeform, but as time went by and more people submitted forms, it got more and more expensive. That time, I thought to use Google Form, but it was way too blocky and looked very unprofessional on my agency website.<p>So I thought to build my own forms for my own usage, and it turns out it almost doubled form submissions and inquiry calls.<p>I was happy, so I thought to build it for everyone and make it open-source.<p>I added AI functionalities using Vercel AISDK. I can generate forms almost instantly using AI and also added analytics AI so that users can talk with their forms—more like talk with their analytics data.<p>I've been building this publicly, sharing updates on my X account (preetsuthar17)<p>I hope this product will be as helpful to you as it was for me. Would love your feedback pls<p>Preet
Show HN: Open source alternative to Perplexity Comet
Hey HN, we're a YC startup building an open-source, privacy-first alternative to Perplexity Comet.<p>No invite system unlike bunch of others – you can download it today from our website or GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS">https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS</a><p>--- Why bother building an alternative? We believe browsers will become the new operating systems, where we offload much bunch of our work to AI agents. But these agents will have access to all your sensitive data – emails, docs, on top of your browser history. Open-source, privacy-first alternatives need to exist.<p>We're not a search or ad company, so no weird incentives. Your data stays on your machine. <i>You can use local LLMs with Ollama</i>. We also support BYOK (bring your own keys), so no $200/month plans.<p>Another big difference vs Perplexity Comet: our agent runs locally in your browser (not on their server). You can actually watch it click around and do stuff, which is pretty cool! Short demo here: <a href="https://bit.ly/browserOS-demo" rel="nofollow">https://bit.ly/browserOS-demo</a><p>--- How we built? We patch Chromium's C++ source code with our changes, so we have the same security as Google Chrome. We also have an auto-updater for security patches and regular updates.<p>Working with Chromium's 15M lines of C++ has been another fun adventure that I'm writing a blog post on. Cursor/VSCode breaks at this scale, so we're back to using grep to find stuff and make changes. Claude code works surprisingly well too.<p>Building the binary takes ~3 hours on our M4 Max MacBook.<p>--- Next? We're just 2 people with a lot of work ahead (Firefox started with 3 hackers, history rhymes!). But we strongly believe that a privacy-first browser with local LLM support is more important than ever – since agents will have access to so much sensitive data.<p>Looking forward to any and all comments!
Show HN: Open source alternative to Perplexity Comet
Hey HN, we're a YC startup building an open-source, privacy-first alternative to Perplexity Comet.<p>No invite system unlike bunch of others – you can download it today from our website or GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS">https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS</a><p>--- Why bother building an alternative? We believe browsers will become the new operating systems, where we offload much bunch of our work to AI agents. But these agents will have access to all your sensitive data – emails, docs, on top of your browser history. Open-source, privacy-first alternatives need to exist.<p>We're not a search or ad company, so no weird incentives. Your data stays on your machine. <i>You can use local LLMs with Ollama</i>. We also support BYOK (bring your own keys), so no $200/month plans.<p>Another big difference vs Perplexity Comet: our agent runs locally in your browser (not on their server). You can actually watch it click around and do stuff, which is pretty cool! Short demo here: <a href="https://bit.ly/browserOS-demo" rel="nofollow">https://bit.ly/browserOS-demo</a><p>--- How we built? We patch Chromium's C++ source code with our changes, so we have the same security as Google Chrome. We also have an auto-updater for security patches and regular updates.<p>Working with Chromium's 15M lines of C++ has been another fun adventure that I'm writing a blog post on. Cursor/VSCode breaks at this scale, so we're back to using grep to find stuff and make changes. Claude code works surprisingly well too.<p>Building the binary takes ~3 hours on our M4 Max MacBook.<p>--- Next? We're just 2 people with a lot of work ahead (Firefox started with 3 hackers, history rhymes!). But we strongly believe that a privacy-first browser with local LLM support is more important than ever – since agents will have access to so much sensitive data.<p>Looking forward to any and all comments!
Show HN: Open source alternative to Perplexity Comet
Hey HN, we're a YC startup building an open-source, privacy-first alternative to Perplexity Comet.<p>No invite system unlike bunch of others – you can download it today from our website or GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS">https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS</a><p>--- Why bother building an alternative? We believe browsers will become the new operating systems, where we offload much bunch of our work to AI agents. But these agents will have access to all your sensitive data – emails, docs, on top of your browser history. Open-source, privacy-first alternatives need to exist.<p>We're not a search or ad company, so no weird incentives. Your data stays on your machine. <i>You can use local LLMs with Ollama</i>. We also support BYOK (bring your own keys), so no $200/month plans.<p>Another big difference vs Perplexity Comet: our agent runs locally in your browser (not on their server). You can actually watch it click around and do stuff, which is pretty cool! Short demo here: <a href="https://bit.ly/browserOS-demo" rel="nofollow">https://bit.ly/browserOS-demo</a><p>--- How we built? We patch Chromium's C++ source code with our changes, so we have the same security as Google Chrome. We also have an auto-updater for security patches and regular updates.<p>Working with Chromium's 15M lines of C++ has been another fun adventure that I'm writing a blog post on. Cursor/VSCode breaks at this scale, so we're back to using grep to find stuff and make changes. Claude code works surprisingly well too.<p>Building the binary takes ~3 hours on our M4 Max MacBook.<p>--- Next? We're just 2 people with a lot of work ahead (Firefox started with 3 hackers, history rhymes!). But we strongly believe that a privacy-first browser with local LLM support is more important than ever – since agents will have access to so much sensitive data.<p>Looking forward to any and all comments!
Show HN: Pangolin – Open source alternative to Cloudflare Tunnels
Pangolin is an open source self-hosted tunneled reverse proxy management server with identity and access control, designed to securely expose private resources through encrypted WireGuard tunnels running in user space.<p>We made Pangolin so you retain full control over your infrastructure while providing a user-friendly and feature-rich solution for managing proxies, authentication, and access, all with a clean and simple dashboard web UI.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin">https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin</a><p>Deployment takes about 5 minutes on a VPS: <a href="https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install" rel="nofollow">https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install</a><p>Demo by Lawrence Systems (YouTube): <a href="https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723</a><p>Some use cases:<p><pre><code> - Grant users access to your apps from anywhere using just a web-browser
- Proxy behind CGNAT
- One application load balancer across multiple clouds and on-premises
- Easily expose services on IoT and edge devices for field monitoring
- Bring localhost online for easy access
</code></pre>
A few key features:<p><pre><code> - No port forwarding and hide your public IP for self-hosting
- Create proxies to multiple different private networks
- OAuth2/OIDC identity providers
- Role-based access control
- Raw TCP and UDP support
- Resource-specific pin codes, passwords, email OTP
- Self-destructing shareable links
- API for automation
- WAF with CrowdSec and Geoblocking</code></pre>
Show HN: Pangolin – Open source alternative to Cloudflare Tunnels
Pangolin is an open source self-hosted tunneled reverse proxy management server with identity and access control, designed to securely expose private resources through encrypted WireGuard tunnels running in user space.<p>We made Pangolin so you retain full control over your infrastructure while providing a user-friendly and feature-rich solution for managing proxies, authentication, and access, all with a clean and simple dashboard web UI.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin">https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin</a><p>Deployment takes about 5 minutes on a VPS: <a href="https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install" rel="nofollow">https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install</a><p>Demo by Lawrence Systems (YouTube): <a href="https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723</a><p>Some use cases:<p><pre><code> - Grant users access to your apps from anywhere using just a web-browser
- Proxy behind CGNAT
- One application load balancer across multiple clouds and on-premises
- Easily expose services on IoT and edge devices for field monitoring
- Bring localhost online for easy access
</code></pre>
A few key features:<p><pre><code> - No port forwarding and hide your public IP for self-hosting
- Create proxies to multiple different private networks
- OAuth2/OIDC identity providers
- Role-based access control
- Raw TCP and UDP support
- Resource-specific pin codes, passwords, email OTP
- Self-destructing shareable links
- API for automation
- WAF with CrowdSec and Geoblocking</code></pre>
Show HN: Pangolin – Open source alternative to Cloudflare Tunnels
Pangolin is an open source self-hosted tunneled reverse proxy management server with identity and access control, designed to securely expose private resources through encrypted WireGuard tunnels running in user space.<p>We made Pangolin so you retain full control over your infrastructure while providing a user-friendly and feature-rich solution for managing proxies, authentication, and access, all with a clean and simple dashboard web UI.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin">https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin</a><p>Deployment takes about 5 minutes on a VPS: <a href="https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install" rel="nofollow">https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install</a><p>Demo by Lawrence Systems (YouTube): <a href="https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723</a><p>Some use cases:<p><pre><code> - Grant users access to your apps from anywhere using just a web-browser
- Proxy behind CGNAT
- One application load balancer across multiple clouds and on-premises
- Easily expose services on IoT and edge devices for field monitoring
- Bring localhost online for easy access
</code></pre>
A few key features:<p><pre><code> - No port forwarding and hide your public IP for self-hosting
- Create proxies to multiple different private networks
- OAuth2/OIDC identity providers
- Role-based access control
- Raw TCP and UDP support
- Resource-specific pin codes, passwords, email OTP
- Self-destructing shareable links
- API for automation
- WAF with CrowdSec and Geoblocking</code></pre>
Show HN: Pangolin – Open source alternative to Cloudflare Tunnels
Pangolin is an open source self-hosted tunneled reverse proxy management server with identity and access control, designed to securely expose private resources through encrypted WireGuard tunnels running in user space.<p>We made Pangolin so you retain full control over your infrastructure while providing a user-friendly and feature-rich solution for managing proxies, authentication, and access, all with a clean and simple dashboard web UI.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin">https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin</a><p>Deployment takes about 5 minutes on a VPS: <a href="https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install" rel="nofollow">https://docs.fossorial.io/Getting Started/quick-install</a><p>Demo by Lawrence Systems (YouTube): <a href="https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/g5qOpxhhS7M?si=M1XTWLGLUZW0WzTv&t=723</a><p>Some use cases:<p><pre><code> - Grant users access to your apps from anywhere using just a web-browser
- Proxy behind CGNAT
- One application load balancer across multiple clouds and on-premises
- Easily expose services on IoT and edge devices for field monitoring
- Bring localhost online for easy access
</code></pre>
A few key features:<p><pre><code> - No port forwarding and hide your public IP for self-hosting
- Create proxies to multiple different private networks
- OAuth2/OIDC identity providers
- Role-based access control
- Raw TCP and UDP support
- Resource-specific pin codes, passwords, email OTP
- Self-destructing shareable links
- API for automation
- WAF with CrowdSec and Geoblocking</code></pre>
Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS
I have a large collection of music files gathered over the years, so I was sorely missing a decent offline music player that can serve as a frontend for the collection. I tried several Mac apps over the years, but since streaming music is mainstream now, there aren't good offline music players that meet my needs. So I spent the last 3 months building Petrichor! The idea is to solve my problem and learn Swift UI development along the way, while giving back to the community with this open-source project! Here's a list of features it has, with more getting added in future;<p>- Everything you'd expect from an offline music player!<p>- Map your music folders and browse your library in an organised view.<p>- Create playlists and manage the play queue interactively.<p>- Browse music using folder view when needed.<p>- Pin anything (almost!) to the sidebar for quick access to your favourite music.<p>- Navigate easily: right-click a track to go to its album, artist, year, etc.<p>- Native macOS integration with menubar and dock playback controls, plus dark mode support.<p>- Search quickly through large libraries containing thousands of songs.<p>The app is still in alpha, so things may look unpolished, but I've been testing the alpha builds for the past few weeks and fixing issues as I find them for v1 release. I welcome any feedback (and contributions!) on GitHub repo. Please give it a try and let me know what you think!
Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS
I have a large collection of music files gathered over the years, so I was sorely missing a decent offline music player that can serve as a frontend for the collection. I tried several Mac apps over the years, but since streaming music is mainstream now, there aren't good offline music players that meet my needs. So I spent the last 3 months building Petrichor! The idea is to solve my problem and learn Swift UI development along the way, while giving back to the community with this open-source project! Here's a list of features it has, with more getting added in future;<p>- Everything you'd expect from an offline music player!<p>- Map your music folders and browse your library in an organised view.<p>- Create playlists and manage the play queue interactively.<p>- Browse music using folder view when needed.<p>- Pin anything (almost!) to the sidebar for quick access to your favourite music.<p>- Navigate easily: right-click a track to go to its album, artist, year, etc.<p>- Native macOS integration with menubar and dock playback controls, plus dark mode support.<p>- Search quickly through large libraries containing thousands of songs.<p>The app is still in alpha, so things may look unpolished, but I've been testing the alpha builds for the past few weeks and fixing issues as I find them for v1 release. I welcome any feedback (and contributions!) on GitHub repo. Please give it a try and let me know what you think!
Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS
I have a large collection of music files gathered over the years, so I was sorely missing a decent offline music player that can serve as a frontend for the collection. I tried several Mac apps over the years, but since streaming music is mainstream now, there aren't good offline music players that meet my needs. So I spent the last 3 months building Petrichor! The idea is to solve my problem and learn Swift UI development along the way, while giving back to the community with this open-source project! Here's a list of features it has, with more getting added in future;<p>- Everything you'd expect from an offline music player!<p>- Map your music folders and browse your library in an organised view.<p>- Create playlists and manage the play queue interactively.<p>- Browse music using folder view when needed.<p>- Pin anything (almost!) to the sidebar for quick access to your favourite music.<p>- Navigate easily: right-click a track to go to its album, artist, year, etc.<p>- Native macOS integration with menubar and dock playback controls, plus dark mode support.<p>- Search quickly through large libraries containing thousands of songs.<p>The app is still in alpha, so things may look unpolished, but I've been testing the alpha builds for the past few weeks and fixing issues as I find them for v1 release. I welcome any feedback (and contributions!) on GitHub repo. Please give it a try and let me know what you think!
Show HN: MCP server for searching and downloading documents from Anna's Archive
I was looking around for an MCP server that could connect Anna's Archive to Claude Desktop, as I wanted to be able to search and download books directly through the interface.<p>I couldn't find any public implementations, so ended up building one myself.<p>What it does?<p>- It searches Anna's Archive by keywords.
- It downloads books from search results.
- It works directly in Claude Desktop through MCP.<p>Check out the repository's README for detailed installation and configuration instructions.<p>The code is fully open source and builds run on GitHub Actions for transparency.<p>I figured I'd share, since I couldn't be the only one wanting this functionality!
Show HN: MCP server for searching and downloading documents from Anna's Archive
I was looking around for an MCP server that could connect Anna's Archive to Claude Desktop, as I wanted to be able to search and download books directly through the interface.<p>I couldn't find any public implementations, so ended up building one myself.<p>What it does?<p>- It searches Anna's Archive by keywords.
- It downloads books from search results.
- It works directly in Claude Desktop through MCP.<p>Check out the repository's README for detailed installation and configuration instructions.<p>The code is fully open source and builds run on GitHub Actions for transparency.<p>I figured I'd share, since I couldn't be the only one wanting this functionality!
Show HN: MCP server for searching and downloading documents from Anna's Archive
I was looking around for an MCP server that could connect Anna's Archive to Claude Desktop, as I wanted to be able to search and download books directly through the interface.<p>I couldn't find any public implementations, so ended up building one myself.<p>What it does?<p>- It searches Anna's Archive by keywords.
- It downloads books from search results.
- It works directly in Claude Desktop through MCP.<p>Check out the repository's README for detailed installation and configuration instructions.<p>The code is fully open source and builds run on GitHub Actions for transparency.<p>I figured I'd share, since I couldn't be the only one wanting this functionality!
Show HN: FlopperZiro – A DIY open-source Flipper Zero clone
Show HN: FlopperZiro – A DIY open-source Flipper Zero clone
Show HN: FlopperZiro – A DIY open-source Flipper Zero clone
Show HN: I built a tool to solve window management
Hello, my name is Andrew. I'm an indie developer and I'm excited to release Smart Switcher for Windows 10/11. I'm looking for feedback on the overall project and the application itself.<p>I built this because I couldn't find a window switching/management solution that worked for me.
I tried all kinds of different solutions, virtual desktop extensions, obscure GUI window managers, you name it.
Overtime I realized I wanted something that prioritizes one window at a time, is keyboard driven with has minimal if no GUI elements.
I figured this part out, but knew something was missing.
I had my eureka moment when I realized I could combine my switching method with a prediction algorithm. This led to the creation of Smart Switcher.<p>Smart Switcher is a data driven window switcher aimed at improving the overall window switching experience.
It logs data on your windows switching, then a prediction algorithm analyzes this data and uses it to predict which window you would want to switch to next.
When you need to switch windows, you press the switch shortcut to switch to the next predicted window.
If this isn't the window you wanted, press the override shortcut to switch to the next most likely window.
You can press the override shortcut as many times as needed until you arrive at your desired window.<p>It’s a paid app with a demo and trial version.
There is a introductory discount and some additional discount tiers for early adopters.<p>Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks!