AI Explorer
Discover and compare hundreds of AI tools and resources
Hey IH 👋
I'm Lorn, solo founder. I'm French, and I've been building AI Explorer for the past 6 months. Wanted to share why.
The problem I kept hitting
Every "best AI tools" directory out there is US-centric and English-only. I'm French, and every time I searched for "outils IA gratuits" or "alternative à ChatGPT", I got either:
English-only directories (theresanaiforthat, futurepedia, etc.) — useful but not localized
Aggregators that just translate content without verifying anything
Affiliate-heavy sites pushing the same 10 tools
Meanwhile, French-speaking users (and there are 300M+ of us worldwide) have specific needs: GDPR compliance, French-language quality, sovereignty concerns, sensitivity to data hosted outside the EU. Nobody was addressing this seriously.
So I built it. And since I was at it, I made it bilingual EN/FR — because plenty of non-French users also care about GDPR-friendly, EU-hosted, or non-US-centric AI tools.
What I built
AI Explorer (https://comparatif.ai-explorer.io) — a multilingual AI tools directory with:
1,400+ tools currently indexed.
Each tool: detailed description, FAQ, real use cases, pros/cons, alternatives
4-tool side-by-side comparator
Quizzes to help users find tools matching their needs
Full FR/EN versions (not Google-translated — properly localized)
The tech stack:
Backend: Kotlin/Ktor
Frontend: Next.js 15
Self-hosted on VPS
The honest part
It's not all rainbows. A few things I learned the hard way:
Auto-generated tags are a SEO trap. I had ~200 tags auto-generated. Google flagged most as thin content. Had to noindex 90% of them last week.
Indie SEO takes time. The SaaS is only 3 weeks "live SEO-wise" and Google is still in evaluation mode. Patience is the hardest part — checking Search Console daily fixes nothing, but the urge is real.
Producthunt launches don't magically work. I launched, got modest traction. Most growth so far came from organic discovery and word of mouth, not the launch itself.
Solo means trade-offs. I can't manually verify all 1,374 tools deeply. The top 50 are well-curated, the long tail is "good enough" for now and will be enriched progressively.
The chicken & egg of reviews. Currently 0 user reviews. Hard to bootstrap trust without reviews, hard to get reviews without traffic. Working on editorial reviews ("AI Explorer's take") on top tools as a starter.
What's next
Editorial reviews on top 100 tools (Wirecutter style)
A proper review system (when I figure out the chicken & egg part)
Newsletter with weekly new tools + curated AI news in French
Real screenshots on top tools (currently using official logos only)
Eventually: a marketplace for premium tool listings (B2B monetization)
Why I'm posting here
Honestly? Two reasons:
Feedback wanted. What's missing? What's broken? What would you add?
Solidarity. Building solo is hard. Reading other IH stories has kept me going on rough weeks. So here's mine.
If any of you are working on AI tools and want to be featured, ping me. If you're a French speaker, I'd love your honest opinion on the FR experience. If you're EN-only, tell me if anything feels "lost in translation" on the EN version — I can still iterate.
Cheers !
— Lorn
Comment