cornfieldlabs

There's a community run by levels.io which does something like this

Working on an actual social network for close friends.

No clout-chasing ragebait news or doomscrolling. See updates from your friends and that's it.

site link: https://intimost.com/login/

demo creds:

test@example.com

Demo123!

More context: (show HN) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45721134

We have hosted on everything on a tiny Hetzner. The site barely has any users apart from our friends:) :(

Info noted

Managed DB costs a lot.

Is there a simple safe setup that we can run on an Ubuntu server?

We self-host the Postgres db with frequent backups to s3 but just in case the site takes off, we need an affordable reliable solution.

Does anyone here run their own db servers? Any advise?

Backups, security, upgrades etc

Now it is live at https://intimost.com

Equinix Metal got the closest, but bare metal on-demand still carried a 25-30% premium over our CapEx plan. Their global footprint is tempting; we may still use them for short-lived expansion.

The Equinix Metal service will be sunset on June 30, 2026.

https://docs.equinix.com/metal/

Thank you!

-Many say they want to stop doomscrolling and clout-chasing but I don't know how many are actually willing to do so

-Individuals may move here but their friends won't. So the feed will be initially empty by design. Introducing any kind of reward is against our ethos so we are clueless about how to convince existing friend circles to move.

We are building a private text-only no-clout social network with chronological feed for close friends.

(It was supposed to be completed months ago but got stuck in other issues)

Here's the waitlist and proposal: https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

Is that friend Josh Kopelman?

I switch to vs code from cursor many times a day just to use their python refactoring feature. The pylance server that comes with cursor doesn't support refactoring.

I'm paranoid that some squatter can tell which domains i'm searching

Don't search on GoDaddy. I read somewhere GoDaddy raises the prices of high value domains by choosing them from searches

I have had a single cheapest ec2 server at 5$ per month and hosted both db and server in it. Sqlite for db so easy to back up. It didn't contain any important data though.

I ran many projects in it

I won’t buy the domain name until I get a prototype ready.

Me too. I learnt it after 6 expired domains

And the famous "anti-social media social network" (spoiler: it was just me).

Haha we are building one too!

Got any advice for us?

Here's the waitlist page with all the features: https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

Email is in profile if you want to connect.

Thanks in advance!

I myself have left 6 domains expired over the last 4 years so you are not alone! 3 are from this year alone

Now a days I don't buy the domain until I have actually set up the server with the codebase. Project might get dropped just before that. It has happened

Edit: I feel validated after reading the replies. I am not alone!

I asked a somewhat related question here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44710221

This. Even sites who don't want to store IDs because they are small or it's against their ethos have to do it or pack their bags

How should small social network sites, forums or any sites that post user-generatrd content etc who can't afford to do age verification respond to this law? Block all requests from UK IPs?

We are building a niche social network and don't want to be in the cross-hairs.

Is anyone in a similar position? How's your company dealing with this?

Edit: apart from cost, storing user IDs etc goes against our goal of building a private social network. We would like to retain least amount info

https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

Me and my brother are working a social network with chronological feed and private profiles.

Goal is to build a social network that doesn't harm the user in any way and provides full control over their data.

Here's the waitlist: https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

Let me know if you have any questions. Email is cornfield.labs@gmail.com

We are building a social network with chronological feed and we are building a mobile-friendly site instead of an app.

If the site takes off, I think we will have to build a mobile app even though we don't want to. Non-tech users don't care about web.

As someone who pushed everyone I know to use Firefox with uBlock on Android, I am disappointed

But as someone who uses old.reddit.com on mobile, I am not surprised

I didn't create that subreddit BTW. But it is good to have a community

There will be a chronological feed comprised of one's friends' posts. It doesn't have to be curated.

Edit: Raising VC funding is the main cause of enshittification. We don't plan on doing that. It is not gonna cost us that much to run - there are not many non-techies who are ready to quit dooms-scrolling. Techies go for sites like Mastodon. So it will be a small group of people who would find this useful and that's enough. It is something we have always wanted to build and building and maintaining is fun.

There's a subreddit dedicated to something like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/digitalminimalism/

We are also building a non-algorithmic private social network if anyone's interested: https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

(Thanks to everyone who have already joined the waitlist and provided feedback)

Update:

Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in $2.4 billion AI talent deal

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/11/google-windsurf-ceo-varun-mo...

I guess building it internally is cheaper

Just 4 years ago, I was recommending Postmark to everyone who faced deliverability issues with sendgrid.

Who's the relatively better provider now?

Edit: A useful article about IP Warm up https://blog.healthchecks.io/2023/08/notes-on-self-hosted-tr...

For me it's the opposite. Autocomplete suggests the lines I just deleted and also suggests completely useless stuff. I have a shortcut to snooze (it's possible!) it. It interrupts flow my flow a lot. I would rather those stuff myself.

Chat mode on the other hand follows my rules really well.

I mostly use o3 - it seems to be the only model that has "common sense" in my experience

(edited) Thanks!

We’re doing this just as an experiment — it doesn’t have to turn into anything big, so no rabbit hole problem.

English isn’t my first language, so it’s sometimes hard for me to infer things from just text.

Really appreciate your thoughts, especially since you’ve done a lot of work in this space.

We don’t think our idea is “revolutionary” or anything like that, and we’re not trying to spin it as one. At best, it might take off; at worst, it’s just a way to practice our programming skills.

I am solving a problem I myself had and seeing if anyone else might find it interesting.

It may or may not take off like every other startup and I am fine with it.

Why the snark?

We are building a private, "healthy" social network for close friends with chronological feed and no doomscrolling or clout-chasing.

https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402600

Basically group chats work only when everyone knows each other