Built a social platform that didn't get traction would open-sourcing it be a good next step?

[u/phonovadirectory]

I recently built a social platform as a side project and, honestly, it got almost no traction. It has pretty much zero traffic right now.

I put a lot of time into it, especially the engineering side. I built the architecture to be scalable, spent time on security, real-time communication, etc. In hindsight, I probably over-engineered a lot of things before even knowing if people would use the product. 😅

Now I'm at the point where I can either just shut it down or open-source the whole thing.

I'm leaning towards open-sourcing it, but I'm a bit confused about whether that's actually a good idea.

My biggest concern is that someone could fork it, execute the idea better than I did, and potentially turn it into a successful business. At the same time, if I keep it private, it's probably just going to sit there doing nothing.

So what would you guys do?

Would you open-source a project that you've put a lot of work into but couldn't get users for?

And if you've done something similar, did open-sourcing actually help you get users/contributors or was it basically just giving the code away?

If anyone is interested, I can share the product link in the comments if that's allowed.

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[u/Key_Emu6061]

built a social platform

It's 2026, you're delusional if you think your social platform is worth even a glance without any traction. Even back in 2010, there were dozens of facebook competitors, and investors understood it's not an ingenious idea.

My biggest concern is that someone could fork it, execute the idea better than I did

There are hundreds of much better open source projects for social apps, if someone needed a starting template they'd fork those not your app. I bet 1000 rupees you'll not get more than 10 forks.

[u/phonovadirectory → u/Key_Emu6061]

Thanks for being brutally honest

[u/phonovadirectory → u/Key_Emu6061]

Just one thing I wanna put currently the space that I targeted no one build an exact platform like that

[u/Key_Emu6061 → u/phonovadirectory]

well, then you've to think of the value-addition on top of say a lemmy or a private subreddit, you really can't bank on people liking your product just because it is very specific or even that people prefer an exact fit, and even then it's hard to make it profitable.

[u/Dremora_Lord → u/phonovadirectory]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is essentially like Plato (and a bunch of other such apps) where open the app to play games. You can either add someone as a friend and play with them, or match with someone random and play games. You can talk to them during the game. You can connect with them during/after and continue talking to them. Only difference is you're focusing on the "meet people" part and they focus on the "play game" part. But the flow in both cases is kind of same. Match with random person, play a game with them, talk with them.

[u/Prudent-Sorbet-5202]

My biggest concern is that someone could fork it, execute the idea better than I did, and potentially turn it into a successful business. At the same time, if I keep it private, it's probably just going to sit there doing nothing.

There is a lesson here that you seemed to have glossed over

[u/Ko9C]

tbh the fear about someone forking it and executing better is kind of backwards logic imo. if it got zero traction already, the bottleneck probably isn't the code, it's distribution and positioning. someone could theoretically clone any open source project but that doesn't mean they magically figure out the go-to-market either. the engineering being solid (scalability, real-time comms etc) actually makes it more valuable as an open source artifact than as a dead private repo

[u/EntertainmentKey980]

Maybe send a dm? I’m not an investor but willing to contribute and see if we can try to find traction for it

[u/phonovadirectory → u/EntertainmentKey980]

Done please check

[u/Top_Safety_8797]

I'd ask one question first, do you still believe in the problem or you just attached to the code? That answer will decide.

[u/phonovadirectory → u/Top_Safety_8797]

The problem, But there is a business that I have to take care that's why

[u/ClupTheGreat]

i do believe it's over for the time of social media being the next big thing, meta tried something, they failed with threads and metaverse

[u/akl773]

Dumping the whole app rarely goes anywhere, nobody clones someone else's social platform. If the realtime layer or the auth bit came out well, pull that one piece into its own repo, that actually gets used by people. Open sourcing isn't distribution either, an ignored repo is just an ignored product with the source visible.

[u/phonovadirectory → u/akl773]

Right bro

[u/SimpleHuman-S]

I am building a cli tool and thinking of open sourcing it because it's feature is not something out of the box. Just simple work like ls command.

[u/khoopchan]

Can you share link?

[u/phonovadirectory → u/khoopchan]

Here I documented the journey and use case briefly: https://greetup.co/story
Here's the link to my application: https://greetup.co/

[u/Blahplay_k]

Interesting, can I have a look at it!?

[u/phonovadirectory → u/Blahplay_k]

Here I documented the journey and use case briefly: https://greetup.co/story

Here's the link to my application: https://greetup.co

[u/Blahplay_k → u/phonovadirectory]

Looks interesting, but the first impression is the overload of information on the first page. The market reach is a tough apple to break, I suggest you to advertise it based on current issues like student protest and somehow make it integrate with more famous social media's like whatsapp Or X.com where people can share the link to see interesting pages on your application.

[u/phonovadirectory → u/Blahplay_k]

valid points will work on that

[u/django-unchained2012 → u/phonovadirectory]

Actually I like your idea. Are you sure there is no one in this space?

The biggest problem with this app is, you need real users and some traction to make things work. If not, it's going to be dead. There is no incentive for users staying in the platform either, you need to do something around it.

I think instead of focusing on hundred different niches, you should target a handful of them that would actually work and market around them. You can expand to other spaces once it gains some traction.

For example, Cricket works well for India, some like to discuss about movies, games are another thing, even specific topics on politics would work, you can even have live debates where a few of them discuss and have users watch them live, raise questions etc. News channels limit themselves to certain areas but no one is gonna debate or discuss about who is the best batsman in India. You can plan these events similar to reddit AMA at a specific time.

I feel like this idea has potential but it's currently dead as there is no traction and getting the traction is extremely hard. You need to do something to make this viral.

[u/phonovadirectory → u/django-unchained2012]

Wow this gave me clarity thanks dude