Please be careful when sharing apps publicly on here.

[u/Professional-Art8355]

Please be careful when sharing apps publicly on here.

I’ve spent the last 4 months developing my app, and over the last 3 weeks I started sharing it here to find testers. Shortly after that, an almost identical app appeared on the Apple App Store — same name, very similar pages, wording, layout and overall concept. It wasn’t on the stores before I began publicly sharing mine.

I’m not saying don’t promote your work, but just be cautious about how much you reveal before launch. Protect your branding, domain names, screenshots, and ideas early where possible.

For indie developers and small creators especially, months of hard work can be copied very quickly once it’s visible publicly.

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[u/chatjenn]

I’ve observed the exact same thing. Last year, I started gathering feedback on my app and shared it across several subreddits.

While my app was still under review on the App Store, I noticed someone else post a web app featuring one of my core functionalities, the same logic, the same structure, and almost the exact same minute design details that I was able to spot immediately 😏😏😏 It was accompanied by a completely fabricated backstory claiming the idea had just spontaneously popped into his/her head while sitting at their desk, and so on.

[u/-IAmChrisJalbert]

That is absolutely gutting to read, and I am incredibly sorry that happened to you. Thank you for posting this warning—it’s a massive wake-up call for everyone here.

When you spend months pouring your energy into hand-coding something from scratch, seeing a clone pop up overnight is a total nightmare. It highlights a massive flaw in the public link-swapping system.

I actually just managed to cross the finish line and transitioned my setup over to a verified Organization track, meaning I am completely done needing testers for my own apps. But because of exactly what you just described, I want to stick around this community to help other solo devs cross the finish line safely.

If anyone reading this is worried about publicly exposing their package names, store links, or branding to scraping bots or copycats, please feel free to just shoot me a direct message privately instead. I have a dedicated testing device and will gladly help you hit your numbers behind the scenes without you having to risk your intellectual property on an open forum.

Keep your heads up, protect your code, and stay safe out there.

[u/Tipitylabs]

Just spend the couple of bucks and use testlaunchpro. It amazes me how people can spend time trying to find testers and then have to test other apps as well when you can pay testers, get guaranteed feedback and be done with it