Pages on Pages
Web and SaaS
price comparison
SHOW HN2022
How HN took it
20 positive, 54 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 42 critical, out of 119 comments about the project. Thread score -0.19.
Execution: 6 for, 18 againstIdea: 6 for, 10 againstPricing: 3 for, 5 againstPerformance: 0 for, 4 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Site works well and is a useful way to find non-Amazon sellers.
From 2 comments
Love the cheeky jab at George R.R. Martin, the site works fantastically, though as others have mentioned an ISBN search would make the entire workflow miles more efficient.
reayn on HNPretty nice as a way of finding non-Amazon places to buy books. I don't care so much about cheapest, but I do prefer to support independent shops and authors. Any plans to add…
unhammer on HN
Objections
Results are only accurate for US visitors; other regions are not optimized.
From 2 comments
Sorry for the confusion, the site hasn't been optimized outside of the USA yet, so some of your results may be a slightly off in terms of pricing and delivery times. Working on…
shnksi on HNYes it takes shipping into account but it's only optimized for USA users at the moment, if you're anywhere else your results might not be entirely accurate. I'm planning on…
shnksi on HN
Title search misses exact matches and returns irrelevant books.
From 1 comment
Looking for the book _Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy_ I searched for “Mechanical Accuracy.” While the site did find the book, it was the fourth one listed. None of the books…
Hnrobert42 on HN
Cheapest is not the right goal; independent shops matter more.
From 2 comments
Is "cheapest" the right objective? Because if that's the case, book piracy seems like the clear winner. But maybe we should consider "cheapest with some boundaries". For…
socialismisok on HN"Cheapest" is not in my criteria. When I share book links I always take the time to find the original publisher and / or author's website and pass that around. Pay an extra…
rapnie on HN
Requests
ISBN search.
From 2 comments
Would be nice to search by ISBN. I tried some titles and didn’t get the right matches
zeroonetwothree on HNLove the cheeky jab at George R.R. Martin, the site works fantastically, though as others have mentioned an ISBN search would make the entire workflow miles more efficient.
reayn on HN
No Amazon filter.
From 2 comments
I'm going to add a "No Amazon" filter in the next couple of days which excludes Amazon and it's subsidiaries from all searches. I also plan to add ebook and audiobook support but…
shnksi on HNThanks for your comment. To address Amazon's supremacy I'm working on a "No Amazon" filter that ignores Amazon and any Amazon subsidiaries.
shnksi on HN
Ebook and audiobook support.
From 2 comments
Pretty nice as a way of finding non-Amazon places to buy books. I don't care so much about cheapest, but I do prefer to support independent shops and authors. Any plans to add…
unhammer on HNIts sad I've looked up old books on Amazon and come to discover via the reviews that there are counterfeit e-books on their platform. I would of thought that if I wanted an…
giancarlostoro on HN
Browser extension version.
From 1 comment
This functionality makes a lot more sense as an extension; it saves us the hassle of visiting/bookmarking a new site. It also saves you the hassle of building good search…
ChaitanyaSai on HN
Questions
How are the catalogues obtained, scraping or APIs?
From 1 comment
I have a question. How do you get the catalogue of books? Have you had to scrape a whole bunch of book stores, or do you make a ton of api calls? Do you store all the catalogues…
weavie on HN
Does the pricing include shipping?
From 2 comments
so, doesn't look like it's finding the cheapest. You should probably check against amazon as a sanity check. (I was ignoring shipping, here) Do you take shipping into account?
_tom_ on HNGood start! Not quite the cheapest, though! https://i.ibb.co/bF8nVjV/gone-with-the-wind.png * AbeBooks: $2.87 * PagesOnPages: $4.17 Disclaimer: I worked at AbeBooks over a decade…
thangalin on HN
Alternatives named
AddAll
From 2 comments
While not the most modern UI in the world, addall.com has been around forever and still does the trick well enough for me. Although these days I usually just go straight to…
indigodaddy on HNI've compared a bunch of book price comparison sites, and AddAll has been consistently the best or second best. https://www.addall.com/
bufferoverflow on HN
Booko
From 1 comment
https://booko.com.au/ is a great example of this. You search the title first, then you can select the concrete book/edition on the next page, then a nice list of options.
teki_one on HN
BookFinder
From 1 comment
also https://bookfinder.com
ck2 on HN
AbeBooks
From 1 comment
Good start! Not quite the cheapest, though! https://i.ibb.co/bF8nVjV/gone-with-the-wind.png * AbeBooks: $2.87 * PagesOnPages: $4.17 Disclaimer: I worked at AbeBooks over a decade…
thangalin on HN
isbn.nu
From 1 comment
Shout out to https://isbn.nu/ which has been online doing book price comparison for 20+ years. It's by Glenn Fleishman, better known as an Internet journalist, and is one of the…
NelsonMinar on HN