5 ms·

Show HN: Synesthesia – Visual Website Builder

43 points by Diego-Little 4y ago

Synesthesia is a platform that allows you to create create, customize, and publish your own website. It allows you to select free templates to get started, it has a drag and drop editor to customize the website to your liking, and it publishes and hosts your newly created website. You can also view website analytics and upload content to update your website. I would love to hear any feedback on the project.

verdverm 4y ago
What makes this ... > The Next Generation of Website Builders ... compared to all the other similar services already available?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  That's a good question, the design is fully customizable so you can't edit most CSS properties in the editor. I'm also planning future updates that includes a system for automatically generating a virtual DOM serialized in JSON from Figma files which can be built into a website or application
  - degif 4y ago
    So it is not a next generation editor at least yet? I personally do find this kind of marketing language off-putting – if the main promise is basically a false one, I immediately get suspicious of the whole product in general and dismiss it without even trying it out :/ I would rather read a honest "simple to use" even it is not that loud or unique. Note that this is not a critique on the product itself, just the landing page.
joak 4y ago
Server down rn
Reubend 4y ago
Hey there, the server seems to be down for me.
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  Hey, thanks for letting me know, I'm looking into it
ipnon 4y ago
What should one do to get past the HN Hug of Death on launch day?
- jeremycarter 4y ago
  I'm looking to show HN my project next month and would love to know a good strategy to avoid the hug of death.
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    >I'm looking to show HN my project next month and would love to know a good strategy to avoid the hug of death. Cloudflare. There's no reason for a landing page to ever hit an app server.
  - bradgessler 4y ago
    Have a static page on standby and point it to something to collect email addresses. Don't spend too much time beyond that and any other basics you know of, like DB indices, etc. The worst thing you can do is delay the launch of the project to work on scaling.
- yawnxyz 4y ago
  Is there a way to simulate a hug of death? Are there any tools or services for that? Seems like they're using Cloudflare, but maybe needs an active server connection to use the product.
  - jazzyjackson 4y ago
    > ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your current Apache installation performs. This especially shows you how many requests per second your Apache installation is capable of serving. https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/ab.html https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/ab.html
  - Diego-Little 4y ago
ddmma 4y ago
In the generative synthetic world who’s actually reading websites
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  in the future, the robots will be the only ones who've actually read what humans wrote
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  I think websites are still the best way of processing and communicating information for AI and humans alike
  - ddmma 4y ago
    How can you be so sure?
janwillemb 4y ago
Why the .ai extension?
iosguyryan 4y ago
What is the product? I don't want to hand over an email address based on an Adobe Illustrator mockup of maybe a screen inside the product.
jdthedisciple 4y ago
How is this better than Wordpress? Does it help me with SEO? What do I do if I need a liiiittle bit of extra functionality like a contact form.
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  The design of the website is more customizable as you can change the majority of the styling properties for any element of the website. I haven't built anything to optimize the sites for SEO, but that's a great idea. I'm currently finishing contact form functionality where you get form submissions built into the application or set a custom action attribute to send them to your own url.
ihatepython 4y ago
The name is a bit confusing because there is another program called Synthesia that is basically Guitar Hero for piano.
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  Thank's for the feedback, there's also another AI Video generation called Synthesia as well so I decided to change it Web Factory
albert_e 4y ago
Now seems to be redirecting to ... https://webfactory.ai/ https://webfactory.ai/
- cube00 4y ago
  It's redirecting as 301 "Moved Permanently" as well which doesn't make sense given the post is 7 hours old.
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  Yeah, I apologize for the confusion, I decided to change the name to Web Factory AI since I made the post but can't edit the title or description.
  - pch00 4y ago
    What's the "AI" component? Not being arsey - genuinely interested, but couldn't find anything on the website.
kthartic 4y ago
How is this different from say Squarespace (which I've never used btw)? The website doesn't really tell me. The slogan says it's "The Next Generation of Website Builders" but then doesn't tell me why. Does it have more functionality? Is it easier to use? Is it cheaper? Is there AI, and what does it do? Basically, as a potential customer, why would I choose this product over the one that everyone's heard of? All I got from the site is that I can build a page "in 3 easy steps" - aren't all the website builders like that? Think you're more likely to get customers if the site is updated with answers to the above :)
- Diego-Little 4y ago
  I appreciate the feedback and I think that's the most critical question for me to answer right now. I think Web Factory is more customizable so you can change the majority of the styles to create unique designs. I hope that as I continue to iterate on it, it becomes easier to use than alternatives and it's slightly cheaper than Webflow and Squarespace. The AI part of it is still a work in progress for future updates, but I'm building a system that can convert Figma Designs into source code to automate web development. I think updating the landing page and finishing the desired features is a great idea. Thank you!
  - kthartic 4y ago
    Glad I was somewhat helpful haha. Hope it all works out! Btw I think the design of the landing page is great :)

43 points by Diego-Little 4y ago

verdverm 4y ago

What makes this ... > The Next Generation of Website Builders ... compared to all the other similar services already available?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Diego-Little 4y ago
That's a good question, the design is fully customizable so you can't edit most CSS properties in the editor. I'm also planning future updates that includes a system for automatically generating a virtual DOM serialized in JSON from Figma files which can be built into a website or application
- degif 4y ago
  So it is not a next generation editor at least yet? I personally do find this kind of marketing language off-putting – if the main promise is basically a false one, I immediately get suspicious of the whole product in general and dismiss it without even trying it out :/ I would rather read a honest "simple to use" even it is not that loud or unique. Note that this is not a critique on the product itself, just the landing page.

joak 4y ago

Server down rn

Reubend 4y ago

Hey there, the server seems to be down for me.

Diego-Little 4y ago
Hey, thanks for letting me know, I'm looking into it

ipnon 4y ago

What should one do to get past the HN Hug of Death on launch day?

jeremycarter 4y ago
I'm looking to show HN my project next month and would love to know a good strategy to avoid the hug of death.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  >I'm looking to show HN my project next month and would love to know a good strategy to avoid the hug of death. Cloudflare. There's no reason for a landing page to ever hit an app server.
- bradgessler 4y ago
  Have a static page on standby and point it to something to collect email addresses. Don't spend too much time beyond that and any other basics you know of, like DB indices, etc. The worst thing you can do is delay the launch of the project to work on scaling.
yawnxyz 4y ago
Is there a way to simulate a hug of death? Are there any tools or services for that? Seems like they're using Cloudflare, but maybe needs an active server connection to use the product.
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  > ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your current Apache installation performs. This especially shows you how many requests per second your Apache installation is capable of serving. https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/ab.html https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/ab.html
- Diego-Little 4y ago

ddmma 4y ago

In the generative synthetic world who’s actually reading websites

jazzyjackson 4y ago
in the future, the robots will be the only ones who've actually read what humans wrote
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Diego-Little 4y ago
I think websites are still the best way of processing and communicating information for AI and humans alike
- ddmma 4y ago
  How can you be so sure?

janwillemb 4y ago

Why the .ai extension?

iosguyryan 4y ago

What is the product? I don't want to hand over an email address based on an Adobe Illustrator mockup of maybe a screen inside the product.

jdthedisciple 4y ago

How is this better than Wordpress? Does it help me with SEO? What do I do if I need a liiiittle bit of extra functionality like a contact form.

Diego-Little 4y ago
The design of the website is more customizable as you can change the majority of the styling properties for any element of the website. I haven't built anything to optimize the sites for SEO, but that's a great idea. I'm currently finishing contact form functionality where you get form submissions built into the application or set a custom action attribute to send them to your own url.

ihatepython 4y ago

The name is a bit confusing because there is another program called Synthesia that is basically Guitar Hero for piano.

Diego-Little 4y ago
Thank's for the feedback, there's also another AI Video generation called Synthesia as well so I decided to change it Web Factory

albert_e 4y ago

Now seems to be redirecting to ... https://webfactory.ai/ https://webfactory.ai/

cube00 4y ago
It's redirecting as 301 "Moved Permanently" as well which doesn't make sense given the post is 7 hours old.
Diego-Little 4y ago
Yeah, I apologize for the confusion, I decided to change the name to Web Factory AI since I made the post but can't edit the title or description.
- pch00 4y ago
  What's the "AI" component? Not being arsey - genuinely interested, but couldn't find anything on the website.

kthartic 4y ago

How is this different from say Squarespace (which I've never used btw)? The website doesn't really tell me. The slogan says it's "The Next Generation of Website Builders" but then doesn't tell me why. Does it have more functionality? Is it easier to use? Is it cheaper? Is there AI, and what does it do? Basically, as a potential customer, why would I choose this product over the one that everyone's heard of? All I got from the site is that I can build a page "in 3 easy steps" - aren't all the website builders like that? Think you're more likely to get customers if the site is updated with answers to the above :)

Diego-Little 4y ago
I appreciate the feedback and I think that's the most critical question for me to answer right now. I think Web Factory is more customizable so you can change the majority of the styles to create unique designs. I hope that as I continue to iterate on it, it becomes easier to use than alternatives and it's slightly cheaper than Webflow and Squarespace. The AI part of it is still a work in progress for future updates, but I'm building a system that can convert Figma Designs into source code to automate web development. I think updating the landing page and finishing the desired features is a great idea. Thank you!
- kthartic 4y ago
  Glad I was somewhat helpful haha. Hope it all works out! Btw I think the design of the landing page is great :)