About
Magellan answers one question for developers building AI tools: is this worth building — or has someone already built it?
The problem
The hard part of building an AI tool is rarely the code. It's knowing which problem is real. Complaints are scattered across thousands of English threads on Hacker News, Lobsters and GitHub that nobody can read at volume.
Most idea lists repackage fashionable takes. They tell you a problem exists. They never tell you whether the open-source shelf is already full.
How it works
We continuously collect public, intent-shaped discussions: Hacker News (including Ask HN), Lobsters, and GitHub Issues. News posts and product launches are deliberately excluded — they describe what happened, not what someone needs.
A language model turns each surviving complaint into a structured opportunity: who it's for, what the pain is, and what could be built. We then compute two deterministic signals with public APIs: how much developers discuss the problem, and how many open-source projects already try to solve it.
Every opportunity shows what we searched and what we found. You can check our work against the original thread.
What Magellan is not
Not an AI idea generator. Those are hallucinations — every signal here can be checked against the original thread and the repositories we searched.
Not a social listening tool. We don't send keyword alerts; we answer one question: is this worth building?
Not a "100 startup ideas" list. Lists like that never tell you whether someone already built it.
Not a general opportunity radar. AI tools and developer workflows only.
Who it's for
Independent developers and small teams building AI tools, developer workflows, or AI-native SaaS — and who want to judge an opportunity before they invest months in it.
How we make money
Magellan has a free tier and a Pro subscription. The competition check is free: you should be able to see whether a space is open before paying for anything. Pro adds the full archive, source links, related discussions and exports.
This is an independent project, built by one person (Wu). If it saves you a research week, subscribing is the main way to support it.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or a source we should be reading? We'd genuinely like to hear from you.
Summaries are AI-generated. Original words are in the threads.