I’ve used Product Hunt for years and always believed it was a place where real community support mattered. But our recent launch made me question whether the platform still reflects genuine engagement.
We brought more than 4,000 real users, received over 150 thoughtful comments, and added hundreds of new followers. Yet only a small fraction of that showed up in the final score. Many of our users told us their comments or reviews never appeared publicly, even though they could see their posts when logged in. That was discouraging for people who took the time to register and give real feedback.
It increasingly feels like Product Hunt heavily weights long-time PH accounts while discounting thousands of real supporters who join for the first time. The result is that a smaller group of insiders can outweigh a much larger external community. That doesn’t feel like discovery anymore.
Support responses were generic and didn’t explain what actually happened. I even tried raising this in the forum, but the post never passed review despite being factual and non-abusive.
I still believe Product Hunt could be an important platform for makers, but it needs far more transparency about how votes, comments, and trust weighting work. Real users shouldn’t feel invisible. And founders shouldn’t leave launch day feeling confused about why genuine engagement doesn’t count.
Right now, it’s hard to tell whether Product Hunt is still serving makers — or slowly drifting away from what made it valuable.
Hey Product Hunt 👋
Every launch on Product Hunt starts in our submission flow, and for a long time that meant a step-by-step form. You filled in one step at a time, opened a preview to see how it looked, then went back through the steps to find whatever was missing.
Today we're upgrading it with a visual launch editor. You can now build your launch on a page that looks like your launch, and you edit anything by clicking on it.
Here's what's new:
Start with your link. Paste your website link, and we bring in the details and media we can find. You can edit them before launching.
Edit in place. Name, tagline, description, gallery, links, pricing, tags, makers, shoutouts and your first comment are all edited right on the page.
See your edits, LIVE! The editor is now visual, so you can see exactly how your launch will look as you make changes.
A launch checklist. It sorts everything into Required, Needs attention and Make it stand out, and Fix links open the exact field that's blocking you.
Better tag discovery. Get suggestions based on your description, or browse every launch tag from A to Z.
@gabe Hey Gabe and team, congrats on the launch! 😊
One thing I’ve often struggled with while guiding makers is explaining the importance of the maker comment and keeping the tagline within the character limit. This visual editor should make that guidance so much easier, especially with the checklist showing exactly what’s required and what can be improved on the side bar.
I also love that it’s editable on mobile. The previous mobile experience was a bit broken, so having a proper editor on the phone is fantastic especially while you're away from your desk.
Most importantly, letting makers see their product page as they build it, before it goes live, removes so much guesswork. Previously, the draft mode served this purpose, but it only showed the page once everything was uploaded and saved as draft.
This should save a lot of back-and-forth between hunters and makers and help new makers understand exactly what they need to prepare their launch assets.
I like how @Product Hunt keeps making small but impactful incremental improvements to the platform. Thanks for making the launch experience smoother! :)
Hi @rajsb_ (Raj),
Thanks for the new visual launch editor. I tested it and wanted to share a few bugs and UX observations.
1. Additional links don’t appear on first-time launches
When a maker adds additional links to a first-time launch, only the first link appears on the launch page; the rest are hidden.
For example, if a product has separate web, iOS, and Android links, makers may add all of them but visitors will only see the first one.
This works differently for repeat launches: once the launch post is embedded on the product page, all additional links show up.
Could additional links also be displayed for first-time launches, so makers don’t assume their links are missing or that adding them has no effect?
2. Category tags are no longer auto-suggested
Previously, category tags could be added automatically if the product page wasn’t edited. Now they have to be selected manually.
Since the category list is long and can be overwhelming, especially for first-time makers, it would be helpful to auto-suggest or pre-fill relevant categories based on the product description, while still allowing makers to change them.
This will also help the SEO / GEO efforts of the platform.
3. Drafts aren’t visible in “My Products”
The editor appears to auto-save, and the top of the page indicates that I’m working in a draft. However, when I go to My Products, it shows zero drafts, and I can’t find an explicit “Save draft” option or a way to reopen the draft later.
Could you confirm whether I’m missing a button, or restore a visible way to save and access drafts?
In the previous flow, there was a save draft option, and you could see your launch draft as it would look on the launch day without having the edit buttons all over.
Happy to test anything further or share more details if useful. Thanks again!
@rohanrecommends Good points. Drafts should be now visible. We will check and put up improvements for the other two. Thanks for the feedbacks! lmk if you run into any trouble.
@gabe that’s sleek and helpful, if we’d known this was coming I would have delayed @Articos launch :D
Finally — submitting on mobile!
This is great — unifying what you get with what you see should improve completion and quality.
I still find the Product Hunt ontology confusing — especially categories, launch tags, etc.
I also would love more transparency about the questions about investment during submission. Where does that data go?
@chrismessina +1 to this: “I also would love more transparency about the questions about investment during submission. Where does that data go?”
Congrats, I tested it, the design is great, and the AI auto filling is accurate. Here is my feedback:
I believe that videos are an important part of a Launch this make it feel secondary:
Important: I can't understand the difference between category and tags, I put the same things.
Company info is a bit confusing (the last one): Everything in the list act like a progress bar in the form of a checkbox, you fill the form and it works. Company info is not: you need to click on it from the checkbox to fill it.
To finish my launch, I'm missing an image, but I want to keep it saved and come back to finish it later. I believe it's auto saved but it wasn't clear for me
Thanks for the detailed feedback@bengeekly . We'll check these and make some updates here to improve the flow.
It was pretty meta that we used the new editor to create this very post.
Would love for everyone to give the new launch submission flow a try & share their feedback! What's working well, What's confusing or what could be better?
Wow wow wow! Long-awaited update! Looking forward to test it out for the next launch. Is it available on PH mobile apps as well?
@kate_ramakaieva It's web only for now! Curious to hear what you think when you try it out for your next launch.
Product hunt product editing dashboard has always been confusing. This is great improvement.
"See your launch as you build it" is the exact pain point, and it's the one that made launches feel scary.
Most makers spend weeks building the product, then 30 minutes filling out a form they can't visualize. They hit "submit", and only then do they see the gallery is wrong, or the tagline is too long, or the first comment is missing a link.
Seeing it live while you edit it is the right fix. It turns "hope it looks good" into "I know it looks good."