How do free open-source projects get their first real users without an ad budget?
We're a small team that's been building a free, open-source UI library for the last few months. There's nothing to sell, so paid ads don't make sense, and we've been trying to figure out distribution the hard way.
What we've tried so far, and what happened:
- X: replies to bigger accounts brought more people than our own posts
- Reddit: new account, low karma, so most subreddits wouldn't let us post yet
- Hacker News: our new account couldn't submit the link at all
- Dev communities (dev.to, Peerlist, daily.dev): small but steady interest, and the best feedback so far
- Product Hunt launch: a good spike for a day, then it dropped off
The pattern seems to be that every channel rewards accounts with history, and we're starting from zero everywhere at once.
For those who've grown an open-source or free project:
- Which channel brought your first 100 real users, not just visits?
- Did you focus on one channel first, or spread out like we did?
- What would you skip if you were starting again?
Happy to share more details on any of these if it helps someone in the same spot.
Replies
your X result is the one I'd follow. replies to bigger accounts worked because you turned up where people were already talking. for a UI library I'd do that on purpose: search for people asking which component library to use or moaning about the one they're on, answer properly with a snippet, and only link when it actually helps. dev.to giving the best feedback is also a reason to go deeper there before spreading wider. which framework is it for?