Not a leaderboard, a launch board, or a directory you pay to appear in.
Product Hunt, Uneed, and the rest need a submission and a good day. BuildMole finds you the moment you post, and tells you when a buyer's asking, not just when a stranger's voting.
Six axes, checked directly against each site. Where BuildMole doesn't actually have an edge (audience size, evergreen search), that's marked honestly, not hidden.
| Axis | BuildMole | Product Hunt | Uneed | There's An AI For That | Peerlist Launchpad | Show HN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submission required? | No — auto-detected | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Discovery lifespan | Permanent | ~24h cliff (page stays live, front-page position doesn't) | Multi-cycle, still decays (daily/weekly/monthly boards) | Evergreen, searchable — real exception, no clean win here | ~1 week cycle | ~1–13h (gravity-decay algorithm) |
| Buyer-demand signal | Yes — matches & alerts | None | None | None | None | None |
| Mid-build / WIP eligible | Yes, counts the same | No — launch-ready only | No | No | No | No |
| What's for sale | Nothing — listing is free | Free to list ($200–2k typical spend to compete for #1) | Free tier + $30–657 boosts, $99/yr Pro | $49–347 per listing | Free (ads sold separately) | Free, no paid tier exists |
| Existing audience | Small, growing — no edge here yet | Very large | Medium | Very large, LLM-cited already | Medium (dev/design-leaning) | Large, technical |
Product Hunt
- ModelSubmission, ranked/voted, one 24h cycle
- PricingFree to list; $200–2k typical spend to seriously compete
- DiscoveryPure leaderboard — after 24h, front-of-site visibility ends
Massive built-in daily audience and domain authority a new site can't match yet, still the best single day of concentrated attention available.
No submission required, no 24h cliff. A tool's page is live and findable the moment it's detected, indefinitely.
Uneed
- ModelSubmission, four leaderboards (daily/weekly/monthly/yearly)
- PricingFree base; $30–657 boosts; $99/yr Pro for unlimited posts
- DiscoveryMore cycles than PH, still rank-and-decay
Cheaper than PH, four separate cycles give more repeat shots at a badge.
Visibility itself is for sale here (boosted placement); nothing on BuildMole is paid, listing is automatic and free.
There's An AI For That
- ModelSubmission, evergreen searchable directory — AI tools only
- Pricing$49 standard, $347 guaranteed newsletter placement
- DiscoveryCategory/search browse, not a decaying leaderboard
Genuinely evergreen, and already heavily cited by LLMs, real ground BuildMole hasn't caught up to yet.
AI-tools-only scope, and still requires an active submission: no live detection, no buyer-demand signal, no WIP eligibility.
Peerlist Launchpad
- ModelSubmission, weekly community launch, randomized first 2 days
- PricingFree to launch; ads sold separately
- DiscoveryWeekly badge cycle; launches attach permanently to a builder profile
The randomized-start + profile-continuity design is a genuinely fairer fix to PH's early-mover problem.
Still submission + contest-shaped, narrower dev/design-leaning audience, no buyer-demand detection.
Show HN
- ModelFree tag on Hacker News, gravity-decay ranking
- PricingFree — no paid tier exists at all
- DiscoveryFront page for ~1–13h depending on vote velocity, then gone
Zero cost, highly credible technical audience, completely ungameable, with no such thing as a paid boost.
The clearest "goes cold fast" example on this list: decay can be over in under 2 hours, no categories, no persistent per-tool page.
Three things we won't overclaim.
And three we will.
Doesn't
Require a submission to get listed.
Does
Find it either way — submitting just skips the wait.
Doesn't
Rank tools by votes and let them go cold in hours.
Does
Give every detected tool a permanent, citable page.
Doesn't
Wait for a finished, launch-ready product.
Does
Count a work-in-progress the same as a shipped launch.