Links to try any product at any moment with no setup
Portal exists because trying software is still weirdly fake. We send landing pages, videos, and demos - but the first time someone actually uses a product still requires signups, installs, or a sales call. Portal lets you send a browser session, which can be open to any real, running state of your product. That could be opened to localhost:3000, with an extension installed, or logged into a demo account with safety, resets, and optional AI. You get analytics. The link allows a temp session.
Why is it still so hard to let someone actually try software?
Last year I was in a disability lab in Seattle, showing someone a Chrome extension I’d built to control a computer with voice.
They were excited - but when it came time to install, they hesitated & didn't trust downloading this thing.
I remember thinking: Why can’t I just send a link to a computer where this is already running?
That question stuck with me.
What Portal does
Portal turns a browser session (a real product state) into a shareable link.
Clicking a Portal feels like opening someone else’s browser - already set up - that you can safely explore.
When multiple people open a Portal, each gets their own isolated session automatically.
A Portal might open to:
a logged-in dashboard
a demo account with real data
a specific onboarding step
a localhost or Chrome extension w/ 10 min temp/limited access & analytics on use
No installs. No signups. No pretending. Just click & you’re in.
How it works (high level)
Think of a Portal like a booth at a science fair - an iPad already open to the app, with guardrails.
Each Portal is:
the real UI, fully interactive
opened in a specific chosen state
sandboxed with guardrails & expiring access
optionally joined by an AI you control (to answer questions or run a demo)
instrumented with analytics on clicks and hesitation
You choose the state, who leads (user or AI), and the rules of the sandbox that is contained in a stateful URL. When someone opens the link, that session comes alive. Most Portals take under a minute to create, with zero code.
Demos (led by an AI agent or self-serve w/ AI to answer Qs) are just one use case
People use Portals to:
share hard-to-set-up products instantly, trialing conversion / user insight lifts
run self-serve onboarding or research
send links in Slack instead of Looms
end presentations with actual software, not slides
soon embed specific experiences on their sites
Using an unreleased multiplayer beta, I send Portals to my parents to scroll through news articles together instead of screen sharing, and drop a Portal instead of sharing on Zooms.
A moment that made it click
At a South Park Commons demo event, I ended with a QR code.
25 founders scanned it - and instantly opened isolated instances of my localhost app on their phones, with a Chrome extension already installed.
No installs. No screen sharing. No pretending.
They didn’t watch a demo. They experienced the product.
The vision
We’re building Portal as a new primitive for the web: shareable links to live product states, for the next billion stateful products.
If Google Docs made documents shareable, Portal makes software experiences shareable.
If anything feels unclear, broken, or surprisingly powerful, I’d genuinely love your feedback - and how you’d want to use a Portal.
About Portal on Product Hunt
“Links to try any product at any moment with no setup”
Portal launched on Product Hunt on February 2nd, 2026 and earned 181 upvotes and 21 comments, placing #7 on the daily leaderboard. Portal exists because trying software is still weirdly fake. We send landing pages, videos, and demos - but the first time someone actually uses a product still requires signups, installs, or a sales call. Portal lets you send a browser session, which can be open to any real, running state of your product. That could be opened to localhost:3000, with an extension installed, or logged into a demo account with safety, resets, and optional AI. You get analytics. The link allows a temp session.
On the analytics side, Portal competes within Sales, User Experience and Developer Tools — topics that collectively have 897.5k followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Portal performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Portal?
Portal was hunted by Ben Lang. 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 Portal including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
Ben Lang
📌 Hey Product Hunt - I’m Zach, founder of Portal
👉 Try a live Portal here: www.makeportals.com/try-producthunt
Portal started with a simple question:
Why is it still so hard to let someone actually try software?
Last year I was in a disability lab in Seattle, showing someone a Chrome extension I’d built to control a computer with voice.
They were excited - but when it came time to install, they hesitated & didn't trust downloading this thing.
I remember thinking: Why can’t I just send a link to a computer where this is already running?
That question stuck with me.
What Portal does
Portal turns a browser session (a real product state) into a shareable link.
Clicking a Portal feels like opening someone else’s browser - already set up - that you can safely explore.
When multiple people open a Portal, each gets their own isolated session automatically.
A Portal might open to:
a logged-in dashboard
a demo account with real data
a specific onboarding step
a localhost or Chrome extension w/ 10 min temp/limited access & analytics on use
No installs. No signups. No pretending.
Just click & you’re in.
How it works (high level)
Think of a Portal like a booth at a science fair - an iPad already open to the app, with guardrails.
Each Portal is:
the real UI, fully interactive
opened in a specific chosen state
sandboxed with guardrails & expiring access
optionally joined by an AI you control (to answer questions or run a demo)
instrumented with analytics on clicks and hesitation
You choose the state, who leads (user or AI), and the rules of the sandbox that is contained in a stateful URL.
When someone opens the link, that session comes alive. Most Portals take under a minute to create, with zero code.
Demos (led by an AI agent or self-serve w/ AI to answer Qs) are just one use case
People use Portals to:
share hard-to-set-up products instantly, trialing conversion / user insight lifts
run self-serve onboarding or research
send links in Slack instead of Looms
end presentations with actual software, not slides
soon embed specific experiences on their sites
Using an unreleased multiplayer beta, I send Portals to my parents to scroll through news articles together instead of screen sharing, and drop a Portal instead of sharing on Zooms.
A moment that made it click
At a South Park Commons demo event, I ended with a QR code.
25 founders scanned it - and instantly opened isolated instances of my localhost app on their phones, with a Chrome extension already installed.
No installs. No screen sharing. No pretending.
They didn’t watch a demo.
They experienced the product.
The vision
We’re building Portal as a new primitive for the web: shareable links to live product states, for the next billion stateful products.
If Google Docs made documents shareable, Portal makes software experiences shareable.
www.makeportals.com/try-producthunt
Vid making a Portal: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7422078545230843904/
If anything feels unclear, broken, or surprisingly powerful, I’d genuinely love your feedback - and how you’d want to use a Portal.