Cybersecurity news aggregation platform that simplified staying informed about security threats and vulnerabilities
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We built a cybersecurity news aggregation platform that made it easy to stay informed about the latest security threats and vulnerabilities.
Cybersecurity professionals and enthusiasts struggled to stay current with the rapidly evolving threat landscape. Information was scattered across dozens of sources, making it difficult to get a comprehensive view of emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
Aggregated cybersecurity news from trusted sources like CISA, Dark Reading, The Hacker News, CVE databases, and other security publications.
Every article came with an LLM-generated, hook-style summary to help users quickly understand the key points and decide what to read.
Dockerized, self-healing collector with automated scraping that kept the feed fresh with the latest security news and threat intelligence.
Live search, source filters, infinite scroll, responsive design, and a public RSS feed with custom source selection.
Built a waitlist for personalized email notifications about vulnerabilities affecting users' specific software and systems.
Meet the two developers who built Notify Cyber visitors.
Co-founder & Backend Developer
Backend developer for Notify Cyber. Software engineer at Charter/Spectrum, previously at eBay. Founded Osgil Defense ($145K pre-seed), built TARS cybersecurity tool (295+ stars). Won 1st place at National Security Hackathon ($5K prize). CS degree from Colorado School of Mines.
Co-founder & Frontend Developer
Frontend developer for Notify Cyber. Associate Design Engineer at Loren Cook. Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and Master's in Computer Science from Colorado School of Mines (3.9+ GPA). Co-winner of 2025 National Security Hackathon ($5K prize) with Guardian Grid system.
Since we're shutting down, we're making the entire Notify Cyber platform open source. Run it locally, learn from our code, and build upon it.
Complete Next.js frontend, Python scraper, Docker configs, and database schemas. See how we built news aggregation, AI summaries, and RSS feeds.
Step-by-step guides to run Notify Cyber locally. Includes Docker setup, API configurations, and deployment instructions.
Run the complete Notify Cyber platform locally. Follow the GitHub setup guide to deploy your own cybersecurity news aggregator.
Notify Cyber was a full-stack application with automated scraping, AI-powered content processing, and a modern web interface.
Next.js 13 + TypeScript Application
Python 3.11 Scraping Service
PostgreSQL on Supabase
From launch to viral growth to retirement, here's the story of Notify Cyber and why we're open-sourcing everything.
Developed the platform with news aggregation, AI summaries, and a clean web interface for cybersecurity professionals.
Launched publicly with zero marketing budget. Posted on Reddit r/cybersecurity and waited to see what would happen.
A single Reddit post launched us to 12K visitors in the first wave. The post exploded with 65K views and 96% upvote rate. Site grew to 17K+ visitors and 160+ email signups organically.
Couldn't find sustainable monetization despite strong usage. Decided to open-source everything for the community.
An honest look at why we couldn't monetize despite having a successful product that people genuinely used and loved.
Notify Cyber wasn't shut down because it failed, it was actually quite successful with 17K+ visitors and strong community engagement. We're retiring it because we couldn't find a way to make it financially sustainable while keeping it accessible to our users.
Users loved the free service but weren't willing to pay for premium features. Ads would compromise the clean experience, and enterprise sales weren't viable with our team size.
Even at $1.85/month (down from $78), the costs added up over time. OpenAI API calls, hosting, and domain renewal created ongoing expenses without revenue to offset them.
Maintaining scrapers, monitoring uptime, and handling user support required constant attention that we couldn't sustain long-term.
The cybersecurity space became crowded with similar tools. Competition from well-funded companies made it harder to differentiate.
Key takeaways from building, validating, and ultimately shutting down Notify Cyber.
Zero-cost marketing can be incredibly powerful. One Reddit post generated 65K views and sustained growth for months.
Having users doesn't guarantee revenue. Plan your business model from day one, not after you have traction.
When a business model doesn't work, open-sourcing lets the community benefit from your work and continue the project.
Side projects require ongoing maintenance. Be realistic about your long-term commitment and resources.