Meet strangers through their cats, behind frosted glass
I’ve always found something quietly beautiful about brief encounters with strangers. Paws is a tiny room of other people’s cats, seen through frosted glass. Maybe one wanders over and presses a paw to your fingertip. Nothing to win. Just stay a while. 🐾
Hi Product Hunt! I'm Yuxuan. I make small things on the Internet, and today I'd like to share a tiny room I made called Paws. 🐾
I've always found something quietly beautiful about the brief encounters we have with strangers.
We don't necessarily need to know each other, or even know who the other person is. Sometimes we just cross paths for a moment, and still somehow feel each other's presence.
That's something I kept thinking about while making Paws.
What if there were a little place on the Internet where that was enough?
And so, this tiny, fluffy room came to life.
People from different corners of the world bring their own little cats here. You might never know who's behind each one. But perhaps, at some point, a curious cat will wander over, look down at you through the frosted glass, and gently press its paw against your fingertip.
I love moments like these.
While figuring out how the room should look, I found myself drawn to the hazy light of Impressionist paintings and the soft, grainy textures of risograph prints. There's something about the blurred colors and little imperfections that makes me feel like we don't always need to see every detail for something to feel real. I wondered if encounters between strangers could feel that way too.
When you visit Paws, you can make a cat of your own and bring it into a shared room. You can pet the cats, watch how they react to your cursor or touch, listen to their little voices, or say hi to someone in your own language.
If you can, turn your sound on. The little sounds are a big part of the experience for me.
Paws is free, and available in 18 languages.
There's nothing you need to accomplish here. No levels to finish, no points to collect, and nowhere you need to get to. You can simply stay for a while.
If this tiny room can help you slow down for a moment, bring a little smile to your face, or make you feel a little warmer inside, that's more than enough for me.
I'd love to hear how it feels to you, or if there's a little interaction that made you smile. If it helps you slow down for a moment, that's more than enough for me. Thank you for being here 🐾
“Meet strangers through their cats, behind frosted glass”
Paws launched on Product Hunt on November 5th, 2026 and earned 66 upvotes and 16 comments, placing #22 on the daily leaderboard. I’ve always found something quietly beautiful about brief encounters with strangers. Paws is a tiny room of other people’s cats, seen through frosted glass. Maybe one wanders over and presses a paw to your fingertip. Nothing to win. Just stay a while. 🐾
On the analytics side, Paws competes within Lifestyle, Social Networking and Toys — topics that collectively have 4k followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Paws performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Paws?
Paws was hunted by Li Yuxuan. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
For a complete overview of Paws including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
Li Yuxuan
Hi Product Hunt! I'm Yuxuan. I make small things on the Internet, and today I'd like to share a tiny room I made called Paws. 🐾
I've always found something quietly beautiful about the brief encounters we have with strangers.
We don't necessarily need to know each other, or even know who the other person is. Sometimes we just cross paths for a moment, and still somehow feel each other's presence.
That's something I kept thinking about while making Paws.
And so, this tiny, fluffy room came to life.
People from different corners of the world bring their own little cats here. You might never know who's behind each one. But perhaps, at some point, a curious cat will wander over, look down at you through the frosted glass, and gently press its paw against your fingertip.
I love moments like these.
While figuring out how the room should look, I found myself drawn to the hazy light of Impressionist paintings and the soft, grainy textures of risograph prints. There's something about the blurred colors and little imperfections that makes me feel like we don't always need to see every detail for something to feel real. I wondered if encounters between strangers could feel that way too.
When you visit Paws, you can make a cat of your own and bring it into a shared room. You can pet the cats, watch how they react to your cursor or touch, listen to their little voices, or say hi to someone in your own language.
If you can, turn your sound on. The little sounds are a big part of the experience for me.
Paws is free, and available in 18 languages.
There's nothing you need to accomplish here. No levels to finish, no points to collect, and nowhere you need to get to. You can simply stay for a while.
If this tiny room can help you slow down for a moment, bring a little smile to your face, or make you feel a little warmer inside, that's more than enough for me.
I'd love to hear how it feels to you, or if there's a little interaction that made you smile. If it helps you slow down for a moment, that's more than enough for me. Thank you for being here 🐾
Thank you for being here. 🐾
(A longer look at everything inside: https://youtu.be/qoV8Qox1e0s. Paws is the second place I've opened after laundro.cafe, the laundromat on the Internet.)