Developer tools decision
Indie Dev Tools
A competent technical user can build a usable open directory replacement, but reproducing the site's audience, editorial curation, and brand-driven network effects is not realistic as a drop-in clone.
Visit website↗Built by Alex, who ships 10 products in this index
Not priced
No pricing page we fetched carried a figure, so there is nothing to compare against. The build side is still real.
$100one-off44 h to build
$45/mo6 h/mo upkeep
No published price to break even against.
No open-source build does this yet
Nothing published replaces this one, so a replacement starts from an empty file. Here is what it would have to cover.
What a replacement has to do
- Serve a searchable, filterable catalog of curated tools; accept new tool submissions; keep entries current and flagged for removal when dead.
What it still won’t have
- Established editorial curation, newsletter audience and organic traffic
- Brand recognition and trust built by the site owner
- Any paid integrations, partnerships, or commercial listings the site may have
- Ongoing content additions and community reach that drive visitors
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
No published price
Indie Dev Tools does not publish a price we could read, so there is nothing to compare against. What building costs is below.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a searchable, filterable directory web app in Next.js (React) + TypeScript, Postgres (hosted on Supabase), and Vercel for hosting. Core features in scope: schema for tools (title, description, tags, category, price, external link, logo), public listing pages with pagination and filters, full-text search (Postgres tsvector), tool detail pages, submission form with image upload (store in Supabase storage), simple admin/editor dashboard to review/approve/edit submissions, background cron job to validate external links and update status, authentication for admin (OAuth). Out of scope: paid tiers, advanced analytics, automated editorial curation, and third-party commercial partnerships. Require server-side error handling, input validation, rate-limiting on submissions, tests for API routes and core UI flows, and a Dockerfile plus CI pipeline for deploys.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- 3 cited sources+3
- Evidence score55
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 3
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productIndie Dev Tools — home
- official pricingIndie Dev Tools — pricing
- official docsIndie Dev Tools — features
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
