Show HN: Clean Simple DNS Lookups

5 points by matthewtse 1 month ago | 3 comments
Hey HN,

Last weekend I vibe-coded a cool website that lets you do easy DNS record lookups.

I know you can just use dig or nslookup, but oftentimes I'm too lazy to remember the syntax, and there are less technical users who need to manage DNS entries but aren't comfortable with the command line.

We debug customer DNS issues often at ImprovMX, and we typically link to tools like mxtoolbox.com to point out DNS record issues. But those tools seem quite bloated and from the 2000s. I wanted something super clean & simple, and there were a few features I thought were ergonomically needed but lacking: - no confusing dropdowns or syntax for DNS lookup, just put in your domain or subdomain - click-to-copy for all values - header-links so we can provide URLs that will direct another user to an exact domain and which record we want to reference

This was SUPER FUN to vibe code!

The frontend was pretty much one-shotted with lovable. It's amazing how good AI is when working on a clean slate with all the latest popular frameworks (react, tailwind, shadcn, etc.). And I spent the next few hours making small tweaks with cursor.

The backend is a dead simple python flask server.

Both are hosted on render.com <3 I love how simple and value-oriented render.com is. It's always the provider that gives me the least headache when I want to just launch and forget something.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

  • pul 1 month ago
    I’ve been working on Nslookup.io for years now. Let me know what you think I should improve to make it fit for your use cases at ImprovMX :)
    • matthewtse 1 month ago
      Hey pul!

      I did actually find nslookup.io while researching whether I should build this or not, and based some of my user interface choices off what I saw there.

      I ultimately decided to make inspector.improvmx.com because I wanted something simpler.

      A lot of our customers at improvmx are non-technical (yet still want to figure out how to setup their DNS entries themselves or with our help, and hopefully never touch it again). I think nslookup.io is more powerful and gives more information, but a lot of our customers would take one look at the site and immediately their eyes would glaze over from the technical overload.

      So it's ultimately less about things you could add, but rather the simple lack of features is something I'm looking for, which is targeting a different use case.

      Anyway, please let me know if you have any thoughts/suggestions for inspector.improvmx.com!

      • pul 1 month ago
        Yeah, your tool is a lot simpler and can be less overwhelming for people who are not familiar with DNS. Don't think I'll remove any features from Nslookup. Good to have multiple DNS checkers for people to choose from :)