Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to DocSend
github.comhey hn, i’m alana, founder of basecase and creator of docbase www.getdocbase.com
docbase is an open-source alternative to docsend, which lets you securely share documents and track engagement in real-time.
with docbase, you can upload any document, get a secure link (with or without a password or expiration date), and view who interacts with it and when. one main use case is for founders to send their memos/decks to potential investors. as a founder and investor myself, it’s a tool i use all the time to both send and receive pitch documents.
the idea came from a tweet [0], which immediately made me ping @kiwicopple with excitement. i raced to put together a very basic version 1.0 in a few days and launched it last night. luckily, it actually wasn’t too difficult using supabase for the database, authentication, and storage, next.js app router, shadcn ui [1], and vercel hosting.
i’m already working on some updates for version 2.0, like improving page load performance, adding notifications, and enriching analytics. it’s entirely open-source [2], so anyone can contribute and help me make it better.
i’d love your feedback, so hit me up on github or twitter with your thoughts!
[0] https://twitter.com/mfts0/status/1660980644065730561?s=20
[1] https://ui.shadcn.com/
[2] https://github.com/alanagoyal/docbase Great job on releasing an open-source alternative to DocSend and choosing the MIT license! It's exciting to witness the rise of self-hosted open-source software with a hosted paid offering. Keep up the good work. Great to see popular SaaS use cases commoditized and opened up like this. After product categories start to fossilize into a standard UX + features, the benefits of using an expensive vendor start to decrease. exactly. docsend is a great product, but once my free trial ended i didn’t want to pay $20/mo just to send documents. maybe i’m cheap ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that was so smooth to sign up! https://www.getdocbase.com/links/b8eaa394-ece4-4c03-b88e-b3e... one issue is that i typed in a random email and got the link anyway. so maybe some email verification or SSO signup is needed. you can choose to set a password for that reason :) it should have at least verified you entered an accurate email tho? what was the most challenging thing about making this? building with the new app router is still pretty challenging for me (esp getting it to work with other services like supabase auth)