Show HN: mdto.page – Turn Markdown into a shareable webpage instantly
58 points by hjinco 4 days ago | 31 comments
Hi HN

I built mdto.page because I often needed a quick way to share Markdown notes or documentation as a proper webpage, without setting up a GitHub repo or configuring a static site generator.

I wanted something dead simple: upload Markdown -> get a shareable public URL.

Key features:

Instant Publishing: No login or setup required.

Flexible Expiration: You can set links to expire automatically after 1 day, 7 days, 2 weeks, or 30 days. Great for temporary sharing.

It's free to use. I’d love to hear your feedback!

  • wiether 4 days ago |
    Hi,

    First thing that came to my mind: how do I "curl" a md to it?

    But then, I don't know how you intend to manage spam/abuse

    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      To prevent abuse, I'm using Cloudflare Turnstile to challenge bot access. Since the server validates the token from the browser, curl doesn't work—you'll have to use the web UI to upload. It's the simplest way I could keep the spam away for now.
      • wiether 4 days ago |
        That's what I was worried about... Thanks for the answer!
        • efilife 4 days ago |
          why is it a problem?
          • wiether 4 days ago |
            Because you can't use it in a CI
            • hjinco 4 days ago |
              Good point. I‘ll be adding login and API support soon
  • barishnamazov 4 days ago |
    I use a self hosted HedgeDoc with Fail2Ban to deal with this. A cheap VPS + Coolify makes life so much better.

    Separately, be cautious of people putting illegal content on your platform.

    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      Appreciate the tips!
  • saltwounds 4 days ago |
    I like the idea and expiration dates. Got any example pages using either theme?
    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      Glad you like the idea! I just put together a couple of quick examples to show how the themes look:

      default: https://mdto.page/1E/ILeVn resume: https://mdto.page/1E/Cxhnf

      • kps 4 days ago |
        Please use `:prefers-color-scheme` throughout.
        • hjinco 4 days ago |
          Got it
      • zahlman 4 days ago |
        Hmm. The explanation seems short enough to have written by hand easily. But I suppose that the natural style of AI output has the upside that it demonstrates the Markdown rendering well.
  • Igor_Wiwi 4 days ago |
    In https://mdview.io/ I implemented sharing via url encoding so no server is needed, thou big files are not supported because of the url length limitation
    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      looks cool
  • thunderbong 4 days ago |
    There's also Markdeep

    https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/

    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      thanks for sharing
    • forgotpwd16 4 days ago |
      Looks interesting but Markdown is the only relevance. Submitted tool/page is about sharing/hosting. Markdeep is about making self-contained Markdown-written HTML pages.
  • acrophiliac 4 days ago |
    I'm guessing it doesn't handle images because you'd have to upload the image, right? I tried one in this format: ![title](P1090910.JPG) with no luck. (Update: it works with URL links)
    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      It doesn’t support local images yet since it currently only renders uploaded Markdown, but I’m looking into ways to make it work. thanks for the feedback!
  • souvlakee 4 days ago |
    Adding an API can significantly increase the number of users, as it will make it easier for agents to share content.
    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      Thanks! i’m planning to roll out API support soon
  • forgotpwd16 4 days ago |
    Looks nice, but if it was just because needed such tool, there're already mdshare and peerpad. There's also jbt's editor that saves state on URL, i.e., https://jbt.github.io/markdown-editor/#U1bwyOTics9XSEpMzlYoy....
    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      I felt like most of the current tools lack good design. That’s why I’m planning to add lots of pretty themes and even a feature where users can customize their own later on.
  • KomoD 4 days ago |
    I really suggest adding some way to report pages because phishers and spammers will abuse it when they find it.
    • mmerlin 4 days ago |
      Could add LLM-as-judge function to review new uploads and shadowban spam/scams
    • hjinco 4 days ago |
      Thanks! That would be a good technical challenge for me. I'll try to get it reflected.
  • preya2k 4 days ago |
    This looks very similar to https://docsify-this.net/
  • erlkonig 4 days ago |
    A while ago, I just wrote a filter to be able to paste markdown into a <name>.smd file, and an Apache filter to autoprocess them much like any other filter (and a <named>.smd.meta for title info and some other metadata).

    This makes it super easy to write something cool on Reddit or whatever, then just paste the markdown into an index.smd file in a new directory (named meaningfully) and poof it's in a webpage.

    The core of all of it is a /var/www/cgi-bin/markdown-to-html program centered on:

        python3 -m markdown -x codehilite -x fenced_code -x toc
    It's enabled in my ~/www/.htaccess of all places:

      # This works, with setup in /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/mod-ext_filter-adds.conf
  AddType text/markdown .md
  AddType text/markdown .smd 
  AddOutputFilter markdown-to-html            md
  AddOutputFilter markdown-to-shtml;INCLUDES smd
    Much easier to just edit markdown (index.smd usually) and reload than reconvert, and that filter above lets you include arbitrary HTML too, critical to deal with markdown numerous weaknesses.
  • NamlchakKhandro 4 days ago |
    Or just upload as gist
  • dhruv3006 3 days ago |
    Building something on markdown as well - https://voiden.md/

    Also, nice project - I like the thinking here.