open prompter is about to pass 500 downloads. that is a small number. for a free, open-source app built by one person, with no ads and no marketing budget, it is a big deal. thank you.
why this number matters to me#
500 is not a launch headline. nobody writes a press release about it. but i know what every one of those installs is.
each one is a person who picked a free tool over a subscription. who handed their script and their workflow to an app with no account, no login, no "create your profile first." you just open the folder and read.
that takes a little trust. there is no sign-up wall to hide behind, no onboarding funnel doing the convincing. you tried it, and a lot of you kept it. that is the part i did not take for granted.
why i built it#
every teleprompter on the store wants a subscription before it will flip the text for a beam splitter. most want your script uploaded to their cloud. the rest hide the good features behind a paywall that scales with how serious you are about your craft.
the category felt stale and overpriced. so i built the thing i wanted. it reads the markdown file you already wrote, records you reading it on the phone you already own, and saves the take where the script came from. that is it.
i did not know if anyone else wanted that. turns out you did. the messages i get back name the same things every time: simple markdown formatting, scripts drafted in ChatGPT or Claude that open straight from the folder, and the choice to see the camera or not instead of a wall of text shoved behind the words.
that last one keeps coming up. people like having the choice. most apps force a full-frame camera preview behind the words, which is exactly where moving text is hardest to read. letting you turn it off, or shrink it to a small tile near the lens, sounds minor. it is the thing people thank me for most. i did not realize how much that mattered until you told me.
what every install pays for#
nothing. that is the point. no in-app purchase, no pro tier, no trial that expires. it is MIT on GitHub, free, full stop.
so when i say thank you, i am not thanking you for revenue. i am thanking you for using it. for telling a friend. for emailing a bug report instead of leaving a one-star review. for being the reason a free side project is worth shipping updates for.
what is next#
still shipping. still listening. v2 added recording and voice tracking, and most of what shaped those came from people who wrote in. i read every email.
if you have an idea, a bug, or a workflow open prompter is getting in the way of, tell me at hello@openprompter.app. that inbox is how the roadmap actually gets made.
500 downloads. thank you for every one of them.