How CtrlAltShip works
How products get in, what gets checked, and what you can trust.
The short version
Free listings, curated by a pipeline instead of a paywall. Run by one indie hacker who doesn't have time to review everything by hand.
1. Found or submitted
The pipeline finds new indie products every day. Or you send yours through the submit form.
2. Checked
Is it live? Is it indie? Which big SaaS does it really replace? Rules and AI decide. Duplicates, dead sites and corporate products stay out.
3. Listed
It goes live on the pages of the big SaaS it competes with, and the maker gets an email with links to edit or remove it.
The long version
Where products come from
Two doors. Makers can submit their product, and submissions always go first in the queue. The rest are found automatically: every day the pipeline looks at new launches on public launch platforms and maker communities, and picks the ones that look like indie software.
What gets in
- Live and real. The website loads, the product exists and you can sign up or buy it. Waitlists, landing pages without a product and parked domains stay out.
- Indie. Built by a solo maker or a small team, not a VC-backed company or a corporate side project. Revenue doesn't matter: a profitable indie product is still indie.
- A real alternative. It has to do the core job of a well-known SaaS. A plugin or add-on built on top of that SaaS is a complement, not an alternative, so it doesn't count.
- Not already here. Duplicates, renamed clones and mirror domains are filtered out.
How the checks work
Two AI passes with rules around them. The first one screens the candidate from public information. The second one reads the product's own website and has to back up every claim with what's on it: what the product does, who makes it, which big SaaS it replaces and how it's priced. Prices are matched against the actual pricing page before anything is published.
Only products that pass both, with a high fit score, get listed, and only a handful per day. Right before publishing, the site is checked again.
Keeping it clean
Every week each listed site is checked again. If a site stays down for three checks in a row, the listing is taken down. When a new big SaaS is added to the directory, the pipeline looks for listed products that are genuine alternatives to it and links them, within each product's limit of alternatives.
Makers stay in control
When a product is listed, the maker gets one email with links to claim, edit or remove it. Removal is one click. Once a listing is claimed, the pipeline never touches it again: the copy, logo and alternatives are the maker's.
How comparisons are built
Each "X vs Y" comparison starts from the official websites and pricing pages of both tools. Prices are checked against those pages, and opinions in "What users say" come from public discussions, with links to the sources. A second AI pass checks every claim of the article against the collected facts before it goes live. Comparisons are verified again every three months and show the date of the last check.
What you won't find
No paid placements, no affiliate links and no fake reviews. Listing is free. If CtrlAltShip ever gets real organic traffic, a small yearly fee to stay listed may come, announced well in advance and never charged automatically.
Automation makes mistakes. If you see one, write to me and I'll fix it.
FAQ
- A spot in a focused, no-bullshit directory
- A contextual backlink from the pages of the big SaaS you compete with
- A little dopamine hit
- And the satisfaction of supporting another indie maker doing weird things online
Built and run by one indie maker.
Who's behind CtrlAltShip →