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Where Users Ask About Software

Map and monitor the places where people ask for software recommendations, look for apps, utilities, extensions and alternatives, and share experiences with tools (subreddits, Q&A sites, alternative directories, forums, Hacker News, review sites, Vietnamese tech forums), with ready-made search queries and free alerts. Use when validating an idea, finding a niche, finding where to launch or answer questions, or when someone asks "where do people look for apps like mine", "where do users ask for software", "find alternatives to X threads", or "which communities should I join".

Beginner⏱ 45-60 min📂 researchv1.1.0

In under an hour you will have a list of the 8–12 places where your users ask for tools, the exact threads to read, search queries you can reuse, and free alerts for new questions.

Goal

Find the conversations where people say "I need an app that…", "what do you use for…", or "X is too expensive, any alternative?". Those threads show real problems, the words people use, which competitors they mention, and where to show up later (without spamming).

When to use

  • Validating an idea before building.
  • Looking for a niche: what do people keep asking for and not finding?
  • Choosing launch channels → launch-post-writing.
  • Not for: mining reviews of a specific competitor → research-review-mining.

Inputs

  • Your product or idea in one sentence, and its platform (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, web, browser extension).
  • 2–5 competitors or tools people currently use.
  • The language and country of your users.

The map: where people ask

General "what software should I use"

Place Good for Link
r/software Any desktop software recommendation reddit.com/r/software
Software Recommendations (Stack Exchange) Precise requirement-based questions softwarerecs.stackexchange.com
AlternativeTo "Alternative to X", with likes and comments alternativeto.net
Ask HN Developers and technical users asking what they use news.ycombinator.com/ask
Product Hunt New tools, maker Q&A, "alternatives" pages producthunt.com
Quora Long-tail "best app for…" questions quora.com

By platform

Platform Places
Mac r/macapps · MacRumors Forums · MacUpdate (user reviews)
Windows r/software · r/Windows11
iPhone / iPad r/iosapps · r/iphone · r/AppHookup (deals, people comment on apps)
Android r/androidapps · XDA Forums
Browser extensions r/chrome_extensions · r/chrome
Self-hosted / open source r/selfhosted · r/opensource · Lobsters
Privacy-focused tools Privacy Guides forum · r/privacy

By job or audience

Audience Places
Productivity / notes / tasks r/productivity · r/ObsidianMD · r/Notion
AI tools r/ChatGPT · r/LocalLLaMA · r/ClaudeAI
Founders / SaaS buyers r/SaaS · r/Entrepreneur · Indie Hackers
IT / sysadmins Spiceworks Community · r/sysadmin
Business software buyers G2 · Capterra (reviews + "alternatives" pages)
Vietnamese users Tinhte.vn · VOZ · Facebook groups for your niche (search the group name + "phần mềm" / "app")

Communities come and go, and rules change. Open each one and read its rules and recent posts before you rely on it.

Steps

  1. Pick 8–12 places (10 min). Take the general rows, your platform row and your audience row from the map. Add any niche forums or Discord servers your competitors mention on their sites.
  2. Search each one with the query bank (20 min). Replace X with a competitor and job with what your product does:
  3. "alternative to X" · "X alternative" · "X is too expensive" · "switched from X"
  4. "app for job" · "is there an app that" · "looking for a tool" · "what do you use for job"
  5. Across Reddit: site:reddit.com "alternative to X". In a subreddit, use its own search sorted by Top → Past year.
  6. Vietnamese: "phần mềm" job · "app nào" job · "thay thế X".
  7. Save the best 15–20 threads (15 min). For each: link, date, the question in the user's words, the tools people recommended, and the complaint behind the question. Store them in a research note (research-doc-organization).
  8. Look for patterns (10 min). Which problem comes up again and again? Which competitor gets recommended, and which one gets complaints? Which exact words do people use? Those are your keywords and your landing-page headline.
  9. Set up free alerts (5 min). F5Bot emails you when a keyword appears on Reddit or Hacker News. Google Alerts works for forums and blogs. Add your product name, competitors, and 2–3 "alternative to" phrases.
  10. Watch for event-driven waves (10 min). A cheap new device, an OS end-of-support date or a popular product shutting down creates a crowd of new users at once. They rarely search "best apps for…". They search "how to on " or " alternative". Check Google Trends → Related queries → Rising for the event's name, and Google autocomplete for <device> how to, how to <task> on <device>. Each rising query is a question to answer (a help page, a short video) and, if the answer is "the OS can't do it well", a product.
  11. Participate the right way. Answer questions helpfully, and mention your product only when it genuinely fits, saying that you made it. Follow each community's self-promotion rules. Many ban links from new accounts.

Prompt (copy-paste)

Works best with web search turned on. Replace everything in {{ }}.

You are a user-research assistant. Find where people ask for and talk about software like mine.

My product: {{one sentence}}   Platform: {{Mac / Windows / iOS / Android / web / extension}}
Competitors / current tools: {{2-5}}
Users' language + country: {{e.g. English, US; Vietnamese, VN}}

1. List the 10 best places (subreddits, Q&A sites, forums, directories, review sites, communities) where these users
   ask for recommendations or share experiences with tools like mine. For each: link, why it fits,
   and its self-promotion rules if known. Only list places you are confident exist. Mark uncertain ones.
2. Give me 15 search queries using operators (site:, "exact phrase") built from my competitors and my product's job,
   including "alternative to", "switched from", "is there an app that" patterns. Add local-language queries if needed.
3. If you can browse: find 10 real threads from the last 12 months. For each: link, date, the question in the
   user's words, what people recommended, and the underlying complaint. Never invent a link.
4. Summarize patterns: the top 3 unmet needs, the words users use, and the competitors that get praise vs complaints.

Example output

Illustrative example. Fictional product and threads, shown for format.

Product: a Mac menu-bar app that shows a checklist from pasted text. Competitors: Things, Todoist, Apple Reminders.

Place Thread (paraphrased) Asked for Recommended Complaint behind it
r/macapps "Lightweight to-do in the menu bar, no account?" Menu bar, no sign-up Reminders, Taska Todoist needs an account
AlternativeTo Things alternatives (comments) Cheaper, one-time purchase TickTick Things is iOS + Mac, paid separately
Ask HN "What do you use for daily checklists?" Plain text, fast text files, Obsidian Apps are too heavy for simple lists

Pattern: "no account", "menu bar", "just paste text" appear in 11 of 18 threads. That becomes the headline.

Common mistakes

  • Drive-by self-promotion. Posting your link in every "recommend an app" thread gets you banned and remembered badly.
  • Reading only the top answer. The complaints are in the replies ("I tried X but…").
  • Old threads. Software changes fast. Prefer the last 12 months and check dates.
  • Searching only "best apps for X". First-time users type "how to …" questions. Track those too.
  • Counting upvotes as market size. Threads show problems and words, not how many people will pay.

Credits

Written by @nvminhtu. Found a great community that's missing? Open a PR and add it to the map.