I built a search engine for 700+ AI tools as a side project
I work a day job as a software engineer. Nights and weekends, I built saas.pet.
It started as a directory. Now it’s a real search engine — type what you need to do, find the right tool. 270+ reviews (all hands-on), 100+ deep comparison guides. I pay for every subscription I review.
Numbers after 2 weeks:
75 hand-written best-of guides
Avg GSC position 15.3
6,871 crawl requests / 90 days (Google seems interested)
1 click (working on that part)
Built with: Node.js, Vercel (Hobby plan), GitHub, vanilla JS. Zero marketing budget.
Would love feedback on the search experience. If you try it and can’t find what you’re looking for, tell me — I’ll fix it.
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Awesome project! The AI tools space is getting crowded fast, so having a curated search engine is super valuable. I just launched a real-time analytics pipeline (FastAPI + TimescaleDB) on Product Hunt today — building in public is the way to go! The indexing approach you used sounds interesting. How are you handling freshness — do you periodically re-crawl or rely on submissions?
Love this. The fact you’re paying for and testing each tool is a huge trust signal.
Search feels solid; I’d love simple filters (pricing, free/paid, no-login). Also think your hands-on reviews are the real moat. Maybe highlight “personally tested” / “deep comparison” more prominently in the results.