In short: Product Hunt and Show HN are not two versions of the same launch. Product Hunt lists a product on a day you schedule, and only a small share of what is posted gets featured on its homepage. Show HN is for something people can try right now, and its rules turn away landing pages and sign-up pages. If your product works without a waitlist, Show HN fits; if you have a page, a story and people who already follow you, Product Hunt fits. Both forbid asking for votes.
The two get compared because they are the launches founders hear about first. But they want different things from you, and the wrong one costs a launch you cannot repeat.
What does each one actually let you post?
Product Hunt lists products. You post from a personal account (its help centre says "Company accounts cannot hunt or post products"), save the post as a draft or schedule it, and it goes live at 12:01 AM Pacific on the day you chose (Product Hunt help). A product launches on a day you pick, and again only when it has a significant new version; our Product Hunt page has what its free listing asks for and the date we read its terms.
Show HN is a kind of Hacker News post with its own rules. In Hacker News's words, it is "for something you've made that other people can play with", and "if your work isn't ready for users to try out, please don't do a Show HN". It excludes blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters and lists, and says plainly: "Don't post landing pages or fundraisers" (Show HN rules). They also ask you to make it easy to try, ideally with no sign-up, and to be around to answer questions.
So the first question is not which one is better. It is whether you have something a stranger can use today. A waitlist page can go on Product Hunt. It cannot go on Show HN.
How much attention does each one give?
On Product Hunt, being posted and being seen are not the same thing. Hunted.Space, which tracks every Product Hunt launch, counted 170,220 launches in 2026 by 21 October, of which 6,437 were featured; the busiest day of the year, 20 October, had 1,383 launches and 33 featured (Hunted.Space). A launch that is not featured sits outside the homepage most visitors read.
What a featured launch brings, by its rank on the day, is in our Product Hunt guide, with the published numbers and their sources.
Show HN posts go to their own listing as well as competing for the Hacker News front page. Hacker News publishes no traffic figures for Show HN, and we have not found a public dataset we would quote, so we give none here.
What do the rules forbid on each?
Both ban the most tempting shortcut. Hacker News's guidelines say "Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions" and "Please don't use HN primarily for promotion"; posting your own work "part of the time" is fine (HN guidelines). The Show HN rules repeat it: "Please don't ask friends to upvote or comment."
Product Hunt's terms forbid automated submission, which is why its directory page marks it as hand-submitted only. Its community guidelines also ban bots and artificial activity; what that means for a launch is covered in the Product Hunt guide.
Who does each one suit?
Show HN suits a product a developer audience can try in a minute: a tool, a library, a site that does something on the first click. The people commenting will try it, and they will say what broke. Come ready to answer them, because the rules ask you to be there.
Product Hunt suits a product with a finished page, a clear one-line description and people who already follow you, so the first hours are not empty. It is also the only one of the two that accepts a product people cannot try yet.
Neither suits a page that does not yet say what the product is. On Show HN the first reader who cannot tell will say so in public; on Product Hunt the launch spends its one day on visitors who leave. Check the page before you pick a date: the 18 tests a stranger's reading comes down to are published, and the reason-to-act test is the one most pages miss (O4).
Can you do both?
Yes, and their rules do not conflict, as long as each post follows its own. A product people can try can go on Show HN when it works, and on Product Hunt when the page and the people are ready. Do them on different days, so you can answer every comment on each.
If you want more places than these two, Product Hunt and its alternatives, side by side lists nine launch boards with their free routes, their links and the date each was checked.
The short version
- Something people can try today, a developer audience, time to answer comments: Show HN.
- A page, a story and people to tell on the day: Product Hunt.
- Only a waitlist: not Show HN; its rules exclude landing and sign-up pages.
- Either way: no asking for votes, and a page a stranger understands before the traffic arrives.