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Peter Steinberger vs Simon Willison

Products, revenue & stack compared side by side.

Peter Steinberger avatar

Peter Steinberger

PSPDFKit founder turned creator of OpenClaw, the open-source personal AI agent

@steipete United States
Simon Willison avatar

Simon Willison

Independent open-source developer behind Datasette, LLM and a widely read AI weblog

@simonw United States

Peter Steinberger vs Simon Willison at a glance

Both Peter Steinberger and Simon Willison build in public and have sold at least one product. They overlap in AI Builders, Developer Tools and Open Source Makers. Both are based in San Francisco, United States. Peter started in 2011 and Simon in 2019. Peter Steinberger has 5 products listed on IndieMakerList vs Simon Willison's 5. Peter has sold 1 product and Simon the same number. On X, Peter has about 608K followers and Simon about 241K.

Side-by-side comparison

Based in
Peter Steinberger: San Francisco, United States
Simon Willison: San Francisco, United States
Started
Peter Steinberger: 2011 (15 yrs indie)
Simon Willison: 2019 (7 yrs indie)
Revenue (self-reported)
Peter Steinberger: Not public
Simon Willison: Not public
Products listed
Peter Steinberger: 5
Simon Willison: 5
Product status
Peter Steinberger: 4 active · 1 acquired
Simon Willison: 4 active · 1 acquired
X followers
Peter Steinberger: 608K
Simon Willison: 241K
Categories
Peter Steinberger: AI BuildersDeveloper ToolsOpen Source MakersMac & Desktop App Makers
Simon Willison: Open Source MakersDeveloper ToolsAI Builders
Style
Peter Steinberger: bootstrappedbuilds in publicexitedserial maker
Simon Willison: solobuilds in publicexited
Courses & resources
Peter Steinberger: 1
Simon Willison: 1

Revenue figures are self-reported by each maker and not audited; dates and scope differ. Highlighted categories are shared by both.

Top products

Peter Steinberger avatarPeter Steinberger

OpenClaw logo

OpenClaw

openclaw.ai

Open-source, self-hosted personal AI agent that works through chat apps and acts on your computer.

PSPDFKit (Nutrient) logo

PSPDFKit (Nutrient)

nutrient.io

acquired

Document and PDF SDK for mobile, web and server, now operating as Nutrient.

CodexBar logo

CodexBar

codex.bar

macOS menu bar app showing usage limits for OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.

summarize logo

summarize

summarize.sh

CLI and Chrome extension that summarizes URLs, YouTube videos, podcasts and files.

See all 5 products by Peter Steinberger →

Simon Willison avatarSimon Willison

Datasette logo

Datasette

datasette.io

Open-source tool for exploring, analyzing and publishing data as interactive websites and APIs.

LLM logo

LLM

llm.datasette.io

Command-line tool and Python library for running prompts against many large language models.

sqlite-utils logo

sqlite-utils

sqlite-utils.datasette.io

Python library and CLI for creating and manipulating SQLite databases.

L

Lanyrd

simonwillison.net

acquired

Social conference directory he co-founded with Natalie Downe; backed by Y Combinator and acquired by Eventbrite in 2013.

See all 5 products by Simon Willison →

Tech stack

No tools in common in their publicly listed stacks. See the indie maker tech stack.

Peter Steinberger avatarPeter Steinberger

SwiftObjective-CTypeScriptCodexClaude Code

Simon Willison avatarSimon Willison

PythonSQLiteDjango

How they build

Peter Steinberger avatarPeter Steinberger

  • Build what excites you and release it as open source.
  • Purpose comes from creating things, not from chasing a new location.
  • Let AI agents do the heavy lifting and ship many small tools fast.
  • Changing how people use software matters more to him than building a big company.

Simon Willison avatarSimon Willison

  • Write up everything you learn in public.
  • Build many small, composable tools and plugins.
  • Treat LLMs as tools to experiment with hands-on.

Learn from Peter and Simon

Peter Steinberger avatarPeter Steinberger

Simon Willison avatarSimon Willison

Peter Steinberger vs Simon Willison FAQ

Who makes more money, Peter Steinberger or Simon Willison?

Neither Peter Steinberger nor Simon Willison has publicly reported a revenue figure that IndieMakerList tracks, so it's not public.

Who has built more products, Peter Steinberger or Simon Willison?

Peter Steinberger has 5 products listed (including OpenClaw, PSPDFKit (Nutrient) and CodexBar); Simon Willison has 5 products listed (including Datasette, LLM and sqlite-utils).

What tech stack do Peter Steinberger and Simon Willison use?

Peter Steinberger uses Swift, Objective-C, TypeScript, Codex and Claude Code. Simon Willison uses Python, SQLite and Django. They don't list any tools in common.

Where are Peter Steinberger and Simon Willison based?

Peter Steinberger: San Francisco, United States. Simon Willison: San Francisco, United States.

Who has been an indie maker longer, Peter Steinberger or Simon Willison?

Peter Steinberger started in 2011 (15 years indie); Simon Willison started in 2019 (7 years indie).

Are Peter Steinberger and Simon Willison bootstrapped?

Peter Steinberger is listed as bootstrapped; Simon Willison isn't tagged as bootstrapped on IndieMakerList.

Full profiles

Read the full story, timeline and links on Peter Steinberger's profile and Simon Willison's profile.

More comparisons

All indie maker comparisons →