RIP Golden Kitty Awards. Long live Orbit Awards 🚀
We’ve got a big update: after ten years, we’re officially sunsetting the Golden Kitty Awards.
They’ve been a huge part of Product Hunt’s history, but the ecosystem has changed. AI moves fast, new categories show up constantly, and a once-a-year award no longer reflects how products actually grow. Most of the real story now happens after launch day.
So we’re introducing something built for this pace: The Orbit Awards.
Orbit is a quarterly award series focused on traction. High-quality reviews, detailed community insight, founder reviews, and hands-on testing. Less about hype, more about who’s consistently climbing.
Our first edition drops December 1, starting with AI Dictation. We’re looking at the products that got us typing less and speaking more like: @Wispr Flow, @MacWhisper, @Aqua Voice, @superwhisper, and a few others that saw surprising spikes and strong review momentum.
The next few categories will include vibecoding tools, AI automation builders, AI meeting note-takers, and coding agents, so if you want your favorite tool nabbing an Orbit Award, make sure you share your love with a high-quality review 👀
We’d love input from the community:
What other categories should Orbit tackle?
What would make these awards more useful for founders?
Any signals you think we should weight more heavily?
Excited to see where this goes.
See you in Orbit. 🚀
Replies
Wylo
Hey @rajiv_ayyangar , Orbit Awards definitely sound like a strong move. If we’re serious about spotlighting products that actually provide value and scale, it’d be great to factor in the metrics real operators obsess over: active users vs. sign-ups, paying user growth, MoM growth, retention, etc. We might not need all of them though. Add in high-signal testimonials from real users (not fluff), and you’ll create an award that’s genuinely useful for prospects, founders, and PH itself. This is the kind of signal the ecosystem needs. Hope we get something like this! Fingers crossed.
The industry is moving at a faster pace than ever, so maybe a yearly award isn't enough these days. Alas, I'm a bit sad to see The Kitty Awards retire after 10 years.
The Orbit Awards sound like a fine evolution. I especially like that more aspects, e.g., reviews and community engagement, are taken into consideration rather than a "I vote" button.
Product Hunt
@thinkverse Reviews are actually the main signal. especially in-depth reviews and reviews from makers.
Raycast
@rajiv_ayyangar what will motivate makers to write in-depth reviews? Other platforms pay. What does Product Hunt offer?
Whoa! Exciting update. Golden Kitty Awards will be missed! :)
What other categories should Orbit tackle?
My favorites:
MCPs
Voice AI
Dev Tools
Vertical AI
AI Browsers
Vibe Coding
Creator Tools
AI-powered Physical Products
Autonomous agents and Automation Tools
What would make these awards more useful for founders?
A short explanation on why a product was ranked.
Badges or shareable proof founders can use in marketing.
Product Hunt's version of Gartner or G2 reports under specific categories.
Reviews from verified, long-term PH users and power reviewers carrying more weight.
Any signals you think we should weight more heavily?
Quality of reviews over quantity // community trust
Some indicator of retention or revenue (even if estimated or opt-in)
Global or horizontal products to be distinguished from local or vertical products
How quickly the product ships meaningful updates based on community feedback after launch
Overall design experience (UI, UX, onboarding, support, demo and speed to the “aha” moment)
Product Hunt
@rohanrecommends badges coming!
Raycast
Interesting! Time they are a'changin!
How do products get nominated for the rewards, or will this just be a leaderboard for reviews? What is the relationship between Shoutouts and Reviews?
One of the valuable aspects of the Golden Kitty Awards happening annually is that they focused attention for a limited window of time — both from a voting and hype perspective. If Orbit Awards happen quarterly, how will you drive similar interest in them?
Lastly, how will you avoid this becoming just another popularity contest rather than an opportunity for unsung or lesser known products to shine and be discovered?
Atlas
@chrismessina 🤔
Raycast
@laura_cruickshanks 🤷🏻♂️
minimalist phone: creating folders
@chrismessina Maybe that's the goal of the whole campaign: to keep people there as much as possible every day. The thing is that I know how much time it takes to manage a community, maintaining the status (it's beyond a full-time job, and if one is not passionate about it, it's not sustainable). It can either invigorate or exhaust people.
So there should be some compensation. I remember how many disappointed people DM'd me when they weren't featured after 1 month of preparation. After 3 months of effort, it can "hurt" even more.
But we will see after testing. Definitely, there should be clearer rules.
Warmup Inbox
More transparency on rules will be welcome, including rules about how people get featured.
Raycast
@fabian_maume have you reviewed this?
Don't miss the value in that subtle "this" link ☝️. I'd recommend everyone that's launching soon read Gabe's original post and the comment thread. Lots of really good Q&A content there on why things do or do not get featured.
Thanks for sharing @chrismessina! I'm planning to launch in the next couple weeks, and I'm glad I found this thread first.
Trickle
This is such a bold and timely move!
The Golden Kittys were iconic, but Orbit feels like the future. Quarterly, traction-driven, and grounded in real product quality instead of one-day hype — this is exactly what the ecosystem needs right now.
Massive respect to the PH team for evolving with the times and not being afraid to reinvent tradition.
Love the focus on high-quality reviews and real community insight. As a founder, this makes the awards actually useful — not just celebratory, but directional.
Huge support from me. And excited to see vibecoding tools make the list soon. 😊
See you all in Orbit. 🚀
Trickle
@victoria_wu Love the shift from one-day hype to traction and real product quality, it makes the awards actually useful for founders. Huge respect to the PH team for evolving with the times.
@victoria_wu Agree to the recognition of growth indicators! Most things do happen after a launch. PH's determination to change and focus on more time-forward indicators deserves recognition! But there should be clearer rules, so that people can work hard and continue to pay attention to it. Looking forward to the new phase!
Dad Reply
Warmup Inbox
Any plans to make Product Hunt friendly to indie hackers again?
Raycast
@fabian_maume what would that entail?
Warmup Inbox
@chrismessina Give an equal chance to all products. Feature all products submitted in the randomised ranking for the first 3 hours of the day. Filter the list of products only after the 3rd hour of the day. Stop giving 50 free upvotes to the 20 to 30 featured products.
Orchestra
What's about productivity tools?
Raycast
@john_lunsford_phd I like the idea of creating weight classes for submissions — based on employee count, amount raised, pricing, licensing (open source, etc) etc... that would be far more fair and interesting!
Swytchcode
For `High-quality reviews, detailed community insight, founder reviews, and hands-on testing`, are you going to monitor forums and product reviews?
What about founder reviews?