Something changed recently, and most people haven't noticed yet: you don't have to be a chef to make a meal anymore. You can describe the thing you want, to an AI, in plain spoken language, badly, at midnight, and end up with a working app. People are calling it vibe coding. Whatever you call it, it means the wall between "person with an idea" and "person who ships an app" basically fell over.
So now a student makes a flashcard app the night before an exam, shaped exactly like the way they study. Somebody makes a tracker for their meds, or their mood, or their reps at the gym. Someone builds a dumb little soundboard purely because it makes their friends laugh. A parent makes a grocery list sorted the way their actual store is laid out. None of these people are "developers." They're just people who wanted a thing to exist, and now it does.
The question stopped being "can you build it?" and became "where do you put it?"
Because here's the thing: the old answer is the app store. And the app store was built for companies. Developer fees, review queues, accounts, analytics, and an economy where every app is either charging you, showing you ads, or quietly selling your attention to someone who is. Your midnight flashcard app doesn't belong in that machine. It was never trying to be a business. It was a gift.
So we're taking out the middleman.
Potluck is a table. You made something, for fun, for school, for work, for your health, for your friends, for no reason at all, and you put it on the table so other people can use it. They tap it, add it to their home screen, and it sits next to their "real" apps looking exactly as legit. No store. No account. No ads. No price. Nobody's data getting harvested. Just people handing each other useful things, the way it worked before software became an industry.
And it's a potluck, which means the deal runs both ways. Take whatever looks good. Genuinely, that's what it's for. But when you make something, bring it. The table only works if people keep putting dishes on it.
Take the recipe, not just the dish.
Some of the apps here let you open up their own HTML from inside, and copy it. That part is mine, personally: I think handing someone a working file they can open and change makes building feel like following a recipe, not casting a spell. You're not staring at a blank page wondering how anyone does this. You're looking at something that already works, and you get to change one ingredient. Deviled eggs become deviled eggs with bacon.
That's how people who thought they could never build an app fall into it. Taking a dish is nice. Taking a recipe means you can cook up your own version, and the cycle starts over the moment you share that back. It turns users into cooks, and every app becomes a starting point instead of a dead end.
That's the whole spirit of Potluck, honestly. Free. Nothing sold. Nothing hidden. You bring what you made, you take what you like, and the more people cooking, the better the table gets for everyone.
The house rules
Everything here is free, and stays free. No trials, no locked pro versions, no "free for now." If it costs money to use, it should not go on the table (if I missed this while accepting the dish, then contact me using the submission form. I try my best to vet all submissions).
Nothing is being sold here. Not by me, anyway. Nobody pays for placement, nothing is ranked for money, and I don't take a cut of anything because there's nothing to take a cut of. Most apps just open and work the second you tap them; some offer a sign-in so your stuff sticks around between visits, that's between you and the maker, and it's welcome here as long as using the app stays free.
Everything is made by a person. Maybe with AI doing the heavy lifting, that's the whole point, that's allowed, that's celebrated. But a human wanted it to exist and put their name on it. No companies, no funnels, no growth hacking.
And yes, a person reads every submission before it goes up. That person is the one who set this table. Nothing harmful, nothing hateful, nothing sketchy gets on it. Not because of some 40-page content policy, but for the same reason you wouldn't let someone put something rotten on the table at an actual potluck. It's a small table. Somebody's watching it. That's a feature.
Who this is for
Students building tools shaped like their own brains. People making little apps for their health, their habits, their hobbies. Friends making inside jokes that happen to be software. Parents, teachers, nurses, whoever, people who had an idea, asked an AI to help, and shipped it. If you've ever said "I wish there was an app that just..." you're who this is for. Finish the sentence. Build it. Bring it.
You don't need to be a tech bro. You don't need a startup. You don't need permission. You just need to make something and put it on the table.
The mark
The logo is the table, seen from above: a round table, dishes set on it, and one spot drawn in dashes. The dashes are deliberate, because they read two ways at once: either somebody just took a dish home, or a place is already set for the one you're about to bring. Both are true at any given moment on a good table. That open spot never fills in; it's the standing invitation, and it's the whole site in one small drawing.