SaaS Metrics
I've been building StartupWiki, a free startup database designed to make it easier to discover and research companies.The original motivation was frustration with how difficult it can be to find information on early-stage startups. Most databases need accounts, or subscriptions, ro just feel too cluttered. I wanted a website that felt like Wikipedia, no accounts, no subscriptions, no weird metrics, just go in, the info is on the page.The project is still very early, but currently includes:Startup profiles
Search and filtering
Company categorization
Public API (in progress)I'm especially interested in feedback on:What information you look for when researching startups
Features missing from existing startup databases
API use casesI'd love to hear feedback.
Show HN: StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase
A free, open, and uncluttered alternative to Crunchbase and similar subscription-based startup databases, designed for easy discovery and research of early-stage companies, akin to Wikipedia.
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AI Executive Synthesis
A free, open, and uncluttered alternative to Crunchbase and similar subscription-based startup databases, designed for easy discovery and research of early-stage companies, akin to Wikipedia.
StartupWiki directly challenges established, often paywalled, startup databases like Crunchbase by offering a free, open, and uncluttered alternative. The "Wikipedia-like" positioning targets a clear user pain point: friction from accounts, subscriptions, and excessive metrics when researching early-stage companies. This democratizes access to startup intelligence, potentially attracting a broad user base including founders, investors, and analysts who require quick, unhindered information access. The planned public API further enhances its utility, enabling programmatic data access for market analysis or integration into other platforms. While early, its value proposition is strong: removing financial and access barriers to critical market data, fostering a more transparent and accessible startup ecosystem.
Related Ecosystem & Alternatives
Discover adjacent products, open-source repositories, and developer tools sharing similar technical architecture.
Deep-Dive FAQs
What is StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase?
StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase is analyzed by our AI as: A free, open, and uncluttered alternative to Crunchbase and similar subscription-based startup databases, designed for easy discovery and research of early-stage companies, akin to Wikipedia.. It focuses on StartupWiki directly challenges established, often paywalled, startup databases like Crunchbase by offering a free, open, and uncluttered alternati...
Where did StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase originate?
Data for StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase was aggregated directly from the Hacker News community ecosystem, representing raw developer and early-adopter sentiment.
When was StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase publicly launched?
The initial public indexing or launch date for StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase within our tracked developer communities was recorded on June 21, 2026.
How popular is StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase?
StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase has achieved measurable traction, logging over 169 traction score and facilitating 57 recorded discussions or engagements.
Which technical categories define StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase?
Based on metadata extraction, StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase is categorized under topics such as: startup database, early-stage startups, Startup profiles, Search and filtering.
What are some commercial alternatives to StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase?
Our semantic intelligence engine identifies potential commercial alternatives in the SaaS space, such as Trump Accounts, which offers overlapping value propositions.
How does the creator describe StartupWiki – A Free Alternative to Crunchbase?
The original author or development team describes the product as follows: "I've been building StartupWiki, a free startup database designed to make it easier to discover and research companies.The original motivation was frustration with how difficult it can be to find in..."
Community Voice & Feedback
Can you add founder university affiliation? That's the only thing I begrudgingly pay crunchbase for and its wildly inaccurate.
Looks super cool and love the idea!I saw Clerk and noticed that it says that they have verified 250 months runway. Maybe true but sounds crazy high.Maybe if there's a specific article a verification is attributed to, you could add it being cited?Anyways thanks for making this.
Would you consider allowing people to login with OpenRouter?https://openrouter.ai/docs/guides/overview/auth/oauthWould be a good way to have others absorb some of your inference limits and fill in missing data that they need. A call to action on a blank search would be a great flow.
I just approved a whole bunch of micro businesses! I do not get payed for this, and these aren't ads, instead I do it so people can find under the radar early companies.
It's a good idea. Why not ask startups to upload a startup.txt (as opposed to robots.txt) to their web root and collect from that? Pre-filled text forms can be downloaded. Also, as with CB, collect data on individuals through a similar opt-in. Enable users to ping your site when it's ready to collect.You could have a "traction" stat and ask for a JS snippet be installed on homepages or a set of pages. Old school and unreliable. Registered users is also a good way to assess traction. Not sure how that information could be readily obtained.In my previous comment I mentioned attaching a crypto address to domains - you could do that too. That'd be interesting. One feature you could add long-term is crowdfunding. Either for new features, code releases, media, documents - whatever.Crowdfunding activity on startups and individuals would be a great way to measure traction.
a random complain on my part would be the log in with google. hate that. looks great, otherwise. i don't even have a problem creating an account, honestly. but i try to not use the google for anything unless i have to.
How about expose an API so that users can put the name of a startup and it goes through your AI agent pipeline to acquire an estimate? That way, you don’t need to know every startup under the sun and focus on optimizing your pipeline instead.
0 for 10 on some startups (large and small, YC and not) that came to mind.It's easy to scrape YC startups from https://www.ycombinator.com/companies. Scrape that and a dozen other investors' portfolio pages and you'll have a useful fraction of startups.
I expected the VERIFIED badges to link to some sort of provenance information. That seems like a must, otherwise (given the "assume everything's incorrect" disclaimers) I'm not sure why one would take that badge seriously.
It sounds like none of the data will be reliable? Ai and community seems like very little will be true and I will have no idea which part will be true.
Discovery Source
Hacker News Aggregated via automated community intelligence tracking.
Tech Stack Dependencies
No direct open-source NPM package mentions detected in the product documentation.
Media Tractions & Mentions
No mainstream media stories specifically mentioning this product name have been intercepted yet.
Deep Research & Science
No direct peer-reviewed scientific literature matched with this product's architecture.