January 4th, 2026
Whereâs tech headed in 2026?
This newsletter was brought to you byVantaWelcome to the future
gm legends. Itâs the first Sunday of the year.
Donât tell us your New Yearâs resolution is toast already? This week, one last look back at 2025âs best tools, some products you should resolve to put in your personal stack, how to be more productive in 2026, and why your code reviews might be stifling your junior engineers.Â
So, shake off that lingering hangover, dust off the keyboard, and enjoy the first weekly newsletter of 2026.
P.S. Launching soon? Weâd love to hear about it â editorial@producthunt.co đŤś
Build your tookit

Fmerian, who makes a habit of hunting dev tools, got a tad nostalgic and started cataloguing the best developer tools launched on Product Hunt in 2025. His list includes some of the usual suspects, including Cursor 2.0, v0 by Vercel, and Appwrite Sites.Â
Heâs got a dozen more. Are you using them?
Pro hacks

Nika kicked off a new thread for the new year, asking: What will be the productivity hack of 2026?
People are talking about ditching distractions, nixing the noise, and batching their business tasks. Scroll the comments and see what you can take awayâor add.

Your software needs to be compliant to win deals. But you also need your engineers focused on building your product â NOT pulling SOC 2 evidence.
Enter a third option: make Vanta your first security hire.
Vanta uses AI and automation to get you compliant fast, simplify your audit process, and unblock deals â so you can prove to customers that you take security seriously.
Plus, Vanta scales right along with you, backed by support that's there when you need it, every step of the way.
That's why top startups like Cursor, Linear, and Replit use Vanta to get â and stayâ secure.
Donât SOC-block your best engineer. Set them free and get compliant fast with Vanta.
The bad news about code reviews
By Jaid Jashim (core developer, GraphBit)
âI recently noticed a disturbing pattern with one of our most promising Intern/Junior Engineers.
- Month 1: They were shipping features daily. Fast. Hungry.
- Month 2: The velocity slowed down.
- Month 3: Silence began..
âThey hadn't opened a Pull Request in 2/3 days, even though their tasks were marked 'In Progress'.
âI assumed the worst: Burnout? Disengagement? Maybe they are overemployed?
I pulled them into a 1:1 to ask what was blocking the work. The answer floored me.â
Leaderboard highlights




Every Sunday
Everything you missed this past week on Product Hunt: Top products, spicy community discourse, key trends on the site, and long-form pieces weâve recently published.
