# Open Collective

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Open Collective and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for letting open source projects and communities collect donations and get fiscal sponsorship. Main caveat: some call its non-charity middle-man setup suspicious.

## Why people recommend it

- Praised as a superb, no-brainer service (2 comments): "Open Collective is a superb service, bravo." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49453053)) "Surely thats a no brainer!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49595634))
- Seen as a good alternative or idea (2 comments): "OpenCollective is another good alternative, that use the same means to fund themselves" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46198789)) "OpenCollective would be a great idea going forward for better transparency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46214933))

## What people warn about

- Questioned for bootstrapping its own business (1 comments): "have they been using a platform that's seemingly built for communities and open source to bootstrap their business?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47494248))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Kickstarter](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kickstarter.md): 12 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://opencollective.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Open Collective", https://hackerapproved.com/p/open-collective/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).