# Kickstarter

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Kickstarter and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Kickstarter for letting small creators launch products and fund projects, including open source work, and for testing demand before production. Critics say scam campaigns and refunds are weak points.

## Why people recommend it

- Lets small creators launch products (4 comments): "Kickstarter and Steam have opened up the field to smaller studios in a way that has never happened before" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46261964)) "If you're making a product, I think Kickstarter is awesome." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151653)) "That's why Kickstarter became such an unbelievable success." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49222255))
- Funds open source and creative projects (2 comments): "We have the technology for this. Platforms like Kickstarter, Patreon, GitHub Sponsors all enable this." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46148759)) "I think Kickstarter and similar are a great model for creating open source software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782970))

## What people warn about

- Scam campaigns go unchecked (2 comments): "It's so trivial to completely scam an entirely fake campaign, with zero repercussions, that no one should take this site seriously at all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123999)) "I tried to get Kickstarter to take down an obvious scam a while back." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45848708))
- Creators overpromise and under-deliver (2 comments): "indie-go-go and kick starter are just absolute meat grinders of starry-eyed individuals" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201967)) "who still got out over their skis with stuff they promised on Kickstarter" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47024408))
- Project news emails flood backers (2 comments): "they have abused the "project news" system to send me updates for every subsequent project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47741349)) "I have multiple accounts with various "Pledge Managers" because I gave Kickstarter a specific filtered address" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996814))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Open Collective](https://hackerapproved.com/p/open-collective.md): 8 recommend
- [Crowd Supply](https://hackerapproved.com/p/crowd-supply.md): 5 recommend
- [Pieces](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pieces.md): 5 recommend
- [CleverCrow](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clevercrow.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.kickstarter.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Kickstarter", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kickstarter/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).