A large amount of the value is that you aren't allowed in.

My observation is that finance and banking and corporate functions high enough up the ladder operate more like a clubhouse than cutthroat businesses. You’d think all you need to do is make a better interface, but if you’re not part of the club, you’re not doing the business (or even getting shot at it).

the name makes it seem like it only delivers bad news

Yeah, I think a few of the widgets here are neat and useful. It's not a Bloomberg replacement, but it might be a good replacement for a few tabs? You could get the info elsewhere, but I like this presentation more.

Edit: Ah, they're offering a pro subscription. While I appreciate that cloud services aren't free, I'm not sure that I'm willing to pay to replace a few browser tabs. Not for me, but maybe for someone!

100% agree. It's a fun name, but it ends up begging the comparison. The look and feel of it was an instant download for me. It's actually exactly what I want and even tried / failed to build on my own for years. I'll be supporting this project.

Also, and in addition, the value of the Bloomberg Terminal is not the UI, it is the consistency. You don't pay for an accelerator and a break pedal, you pay for the 100% guarantee to find them in the place >100k people have been trained to find them.

Good thing they're not asking $31,980 per year for it then?

Can't you just use a bunch of agents to extract financial statements from company websites the moment they are published? OK, no insider info but you can still do quick agentic fundamental analysis and decide which companies are interesting.

I really wish this was not the top comment on HN. It’s a cool project! Maybe try it??! Or just be silent!

The source is prominently linked: https://github.com/gloom-sh/gloomberb

> please don't write command line tools in non-compiled languages!

Around 40% of Linux CLI tools are written in interpreted languages.

And in the GitHub release page they include compiled binaries anyway... Why would you advertise `curl | bash` as a way to install if there's a binary available?!

Download it, put it wherever you like (probably `~/.local/bin/`) and you're good to use it.

Sometimes I truly wonder...

I know where you're coming from. I've been worried about all the supply chain attacks on npm too. And I'm far from a security expert. However, if you're okay with installing binary packages via `curl somesite.com | sh` I don't think you are in a better position with regards to security.

Agree. If you really want to know what's used here: probably uses bun single-file executables[0] so shouldn't clash with anything else on your system.

[0] https://bun.com/docs/bundler/executables

You install some JavaScript nightmare the moment you land on the page!

The only reason to wrap JS in a downloadable executable is deploy it elsewhere like iOS or desktop - I might add: In Trojan horse fashion where the user believes it’s a native app until you accidentally hit your Refresh hot key and you go “Noooooo JavaScript not again!”

You can neva eva escape tha scrip

Embrace

People repeat this rhetoric all the time, but I promise you, finance professionals can and do easily migrate to other messaging platforms such as ICE chat. This isn't a moat for BBG

Asked a dear friend in the finance industry what he thought about Bloomberg. He's the type of guy who uses these systems daily. Mostly paraphrasing:

  1) Bloomberg was lightyears ahead of anything else in the pre-internet days, so there's a lot of UI familiarity.

  2) Bloomberg's chat is important because, as a hedge fund or investment bank, the chat is how you buy and sell bonds. You agree to the trade in the chat, then tell the back office folks to execute the trade. Direct quote: "I'd wager 90% of the ~400 trillion in annual bond trading value happens over Bloomberg DM"

  3) Bloomberg is the biggest and best aggregator

This is fascinating to be because I always assumed latency was the key. After all, the only Bloomberg terminal I've ever seen in person was hooked up to its own dedicated fiber drop. It seems like the chat and sheer breadth of data are the differentiators.

He created that company I believe. I interviewed at Godel long ago and would probably have received an offer but he was convicted during the interview process and they paused hiring.

> They're paying for the data source

Yup.

If you want fixed-income data, Bloomberg is the only shop on the street data-wise.

If you want other financial data, Bloomberg's fixed entry-point pricing tends to make more sense in terms of bang for buck than its competitors modular price sheets.

People saying Bloomberg is just about the chat are simply embarrassing themselves.

Look at the price sheets of Eikon, Factset, CapIQ etc. There is no such thing as a cheap "Bloomberg killer".

Quality data is expensive. So are the leased-lines it arrives at Bloomberg on. So is the data wrangling architecture.

Financial companies are cutting down on the amount associates can bill the firm for a $30 dinner, and the time before they can have the firm pay for a $30 car ride home. They definitely wouldn't pay for Bloomberg if it could be easily replaced.

Correct. Also, Bloomberg has messaging for traders that is actually an important network effect in certain domains.

> They're paying for the data source... and I don't think you have Bloomberg's connections.

We keep seeing hundreds of Bloomberg competitors mimicking the interface and they always forget that the chat (with the connections), data and the newsroom are the reasons why Bloomberg's network effect is close to impossible to break.

Using the Bloomberg Terminal is taught very early at colleges for any finance professional, which is how they get them as well.

Looks like Yahoo and the SEC for filings: https://github.com/gloom-sh/gloomberb/tree/cd82b5c61a8d0eb0d...

To be fair, I don't see anywhere on this page where they try to suggest that this is competitive with a Bloomberg terminal.

Looks fine on my end (Firefox).

Many people pay the Bloomberg Terminal subscription ONLY for the chat. They don't use anything else from it.

Yeah, looks totally broken on my machine too.

How much intent can you ascribe to any of this?

Gloom Harder?

looks fine on my machine

Was just about to ask on data sourcing, I imagine yfinance is used but can't really tell for anything else (like for prediction markets or news data).

what platform is that? looks fine on mine

How well do you think their terminal works if they couldn't even spend the time to clean up their vibe coded website?

Bloomberg Terminal costs ~$24K per user per year, so the fact that people are paying for it implies it offers at least that much value. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, most of that value lies in the data sources.

It is becoming very hard not to use an LLM. I have been working on a project all this year. I started doing everything by hand, and I am using LLMs a little bit more every day. I suppose we want to use projects that were crafted with care, whether or not LLMs were used. But it is not easy to figure that out. It reminds me. 30 years ago, before code formatters were popular, you could tell good code just by looking at how carefully formatted it was.

my first thoughts too.

I agree with you that the author of this project is catching a stray bullet, but I also have to agree with GP that `curl | bash` got way too out of hand.

I don't know where that came from but it should definitely disappear.

At least the developer includes the binaries for all platforms in the GitHub release page.

The standard Linux CLI tools are installed by a package manager, which has addressed the issues raised upthread. Installs via curl | bash don’t automatically benefit from that.

Convenience. That's usually the answer.

> The source is prominently linked: https://github.com/gloom-sh/gloomberb

This is how I found out it's a javascript project and didn't install it. I only even bothered to do that because I actually wanted to try it. I'm just saying it would be awesome to have that right there next to the curl command.

> Around 40% of Linux CLI tools are written in interpreted languages.

And I prefer not to use those. Everything I said for Javascript holds for Python, Perl, Ruby... as well.

Security is just one of my concerns. I'm actually more worried about borking my system because it's doing some out of band stuff with various javascript pieces that already exist on my system (not by my choice!).

Let those be the 40% we prefer less :) Revealing stack does not validate the framework, but we appreciate some foss sauce 'round these parts.

I've heard the same thing about Bloomberg's chat many years ago. Since everyone you're chatting to also has to fork over ~$30k/yr to use it, there's the implicit assumption that you're talking to a serious person.

Evidence for this being that BlackBerry Messenger and even AOL Instant Messenger had various amounts of traction during the lifetime of Instant Bloomberg.

TIL Bloomberg terminal is the original iMessage blue bubbles network

It's really only a specific subset of traders that need close to zero latency. Many other finance professionals deal on larger timescales so it's not that big a deal. I am more "finance-adjacent" so I don't use Bloomberg personally but have worked on plenty of deals where "time sensitive" means "it has to get done this week. Oh wait, the bank hasn't finished its KYC checks yet. Okay, it definitely has to get done next week. Unless the KYC checks are still ongoing, in which case, for sure gotta get it done by the end of the month".

Bloomberg is also a channel for other data providers. You can access your gas pipeline flow data and index prices, which you buy from SP Global, via Bloomberg, for example. It brings data sources into one place.

Bloomberg Terminal is for humans. It takes about 10 clicks to do a stock BUY. your average retail stock trading platform is much quicker, many have 1 click trading.

The dedicated fiber drop was most likely for reliability, not for latency.

Ah you are right, it's mentioned on the career page. I thought he might be an advisor there.

It's a bit ironic that in a country with free markets, so much of the data that is relevant to modern finance is proprietary and quite expensive.

The exchange/marketplace is the oldest business in the world. How absurd that in 2026 seats on exchanges cost millions and the entities that control exchanges are mechanisms of gatekeeping rather than quality control -- the cronyism shown to SpaceX reveals just how corrupt it's become.

Here's an article. Basically if your trading stocks no. If you are trading different instruments or want interaction with the money folks (connections) yes. https://financetracked.com/bloomberg-terminal

From it: "Bonds and Fixed Income: It provides the best data for interest rates and debt markets. Global Economics: It easily connects data from different countries, such as currency rates and government debt. The Chat Room: The messaging system is the industry standard. If you want to talk to the biggest players in the market, you often need to be on Bloomberg."

same and for some reason people are downvoting. why would we use vibecoded stuff with sensitive information?

Any "TUI" you've seen in the past few years is 100% vide-coded slop.

You can have any opinion, so long as it’s mine.

lmao curling and exec'ing a vibe coded script running in a vibe-coded runtime, what could possibly go wrong!

Why do you keep making new [something]moonx accounts?

It's funny to think some of the world's largest trades are being done in something that resembles a game's tradechat. (WTS bonds)

Bloomberg is big enough that different aspects of the system are going to be absolutely key for substantial subsets of its customers.

I find it interesting that nobody from the finance community is directly speaking about their experience in this thread.

What's the equivalent of hacker news for financial folk?

This is what is wrong with the world today.

Bloomberg terminal is only $133/day (assuming 240 work days per year). So, while $32k/yr seems expensive at first glance, given the total annual cost of an analyst or trader, it's not huge. Of course, they'd rather not spend the $32k/yr if they could avoid it, if bloomberg can give you an edge on just one or two trades a year, you come out ahead. So...

MS Edge, which is Chromium (Blink?) Based

Exactly, our time is limited, so if we are to evaluate a product, we will take any excuse possible to veto a vendor.

If you fail at a webpage in 2026, you have no chance at doing anything complex or innovative.

There is a marketplace on Bloomberg where you can buy and sell interesting stuff you don’t really find anywhere else. Some of it stored in freeports and delivered to your freeport, etc. top tier escorts, etc.

> How well do you think their terminal works if they couldn't even spend the time to clean up their vibe coded website?

Your website is literally down.

https://i.postimg.cc/YCdkwZZq/image.png

And I don't think their website is that bad.

Skipping a dinner is not losing you much money.

Making a bad trade or missing a good one due to delaying data or bad data can pay for several years worth of bloombergs for everyone in your firm in one moment.

Nobody ever got fired for choosing Bloomberg, even if there was a viable alternative there is no way anyone is pioneering the switch.

I think it is more oriented towards retail investors (if anybody) than professional users. In theory it could compete with TradingView?

(I’d especially love to see some federated social feature built in!)

Which is not great for history, right? Seems like a real detractor.

You pretty much need $30/m subscriptions for historical data. Not that it couldn't be worked into this.

Can you elaborate on the network effect piece? Curious about that

Is it still though? I have a few finance friends and they all seem to be on TradingView these days

Seriously. I see a cool product that someone built and is sharing with the community, and the top comment is basically a criticism that it's not a $31k terminal.

The name

What’s sensitive about displaying public information in pretty graphs?

Depends a bit how you're trading stocks - bbg is still an extremely attractive data provider so I'd not dismiss them out of hand.

kys slater

Why should anyone care about your opinion if you are adding no value to the conversation?

Why do you have an account named slater?

I’m the real one. He’s an imposter. Get him dang!

Don't worry about it, it was code reviewed by Claude.

Get a life slater

Yes its a multi-decade long-tail of thousands and thousands of use cases all used in different combinations by different users.

Apparently it's the Bloomberg chat

For a long time fixed income trading took place over AOL Instant Messenger and later Yahoo chat rooms.

I am not making this up.

There were custom frontends that would enrich things like cusips.

They're too busy dealing with their fake life problems to think about their impact on the world.

Curious what you consider those that aren't 100% 'slop', aside from the common ones.

Because I'm starting to see the word 'slop' as a synonym for:

"This person may or may not have used AI to build software and I don't like it"

I find it a bit less funny. There is this perception that what finance people do is super important and grown up but following a brief stint in the industry I realised it literally is just a game. We used to trade bits of stationery and trading cards for fun at school. They never stopped. The only difference is people who never consented to any of this are paying for it all, especially when it all goes wrong.

Hence quips like: "Most customers only use 10% of your features, but every customer uses a different 10%."

I bet its cheaper than tokens for software development with higher ROI.

In freeports? So you mean like art?

Are they trading bonds, equities, credit default swaps, options, , etc in large dollar amounts? “Finance” is pretty broad, Bloomberg is for traders and I-bankers afaict.

Some assets are traded OTC aka “in a chat window”.

> And I don't think their website is that bad.

The download button doesn't even work properly.

Clicking download in the top right gives me a .dmg, the other download button in the hero gives me the .exe, the one in the footer gives me a .dmg

Docs give me a 404, blog is empty

It's really useful to have a chat app that is gatekept behind a 20k/year+ subscription. It's a particularly useful signal if someone is offering you a million+ dollar asset for sale.

Same effect as a country club. You know a lot about the person you’re talking to just based on their presence.

It is almost like they want to be ripped off, the massive amount of gatekeeping is bizzare.

Financial information should be free for everyone.

Inspired by and competing with are different things

Slop is slop when the author could not have done it without the AI.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#:~:text=%E2%80...

That should have been obvious from the mere fact that the bottom rungs are almost completely populated by silver-spooned nepo-babies.

I can say companies with less than 20 mil arr pay around $150k a year for saas and others (sometimes the same) also pay 50k a year for a niche agent harness.

It’s pretty bad except that any other way is even worse.

Ptuh, call me back when Bloomberg implements spacebar heating!

Why would a trader need your consent to make a trade with somebody else?

It is, after its value has been exploited.

The very fact that it isn't is what makes it so valuable.

That's a cool way of putting it, thank you!

Yesterday's data is much cheaper and often free ;)

> The download button doesn't even work properly. Clicking download in the top right gives me a .dmg, the other download button in the hero gives me the .exe, the one in the footer gives me a .dmg

I mean, it works for me?

The site is clearly not ready and maybe they didn't expect people to find it, but that doesn't mean the site is bad.

It is just a work in progress.

I'm not even interested in the site anyway the software and the source interests me more.

https://github.com/gloom-sh/gloomberb

I get that, was more curious if you knew how much that is used for signaling and the traffic there. I sort of expected these communities to exist in other sources (like regular SMS / Slack / private back channels etc).

Well yes, but a lot of people immediately jump to conclusions based on name alone, it's human nature. Definitely something to consider when you're picking a name for a project.

An example that comes to mind is JSON5. People have a visceral reaction to the name, it sounds like it's trying to be HTML4.01 -> 5 but for JSON. In reality, it has its uses but doesn't supersede JSON whatsoever. The name itself has given it a bad rap though.

If you pick a name like "Gloomberb" the most obvious interpretation is that it's a Bloomberg alternative.

I assumed they were referring to market crashes caused by irresponsible levels of risks and deceptive practices like we saw in 2008, and/or government-funded bailouts

often they're trading things with externalities

why should we have financial regulation at all, is that what you're getting at?

> I mean, it works for me?

Doesn't invalidate my experience.

> and maybe they didn't expect people to find it

What do you mean? It's linked on the Github repo.

> but that doesn't mean the site is bad.

I think a site that doesn't work properly is a bad one. That's just my opinion.

I'm going to copy-paste one of the comments from ryukoposting higher up in the thread because I think it's relevant here:

> 2) Bloomberg's chat is important because, as a hedge fund or investment bank, the chat is how you buy and sell bonds. You agree to the trade in the chat, then tell the back office folks to execute the trade. Direct quote: "I'd wager 90% of the ~400 trillion in annual bond trading value happens over Bloomberg DM"

You may discuss trades via SMS or Slack; maybe you're important enough that you have a broker, and you send them your idea. But the broker at the investment bank is probably handling those trades via Blomberg terminal. That's the network effect: all the bankers are in Bloomberg chat, and it is therefore the easiest place to find who owns an asset and negotiate a trade.

> What do you mean? It's linked on the Github repo...I think a site that doesn't work properly is a bad one. That's just my opinion.

I mean isn't this the point of open source?

You can fork the repo and fix the problem instead of complaining?

Thank you, that was the piece I wasn't aware of! Appreciate the reposting.

You can still give constructive criticism of an open source project though, right?

So, volunteer time for free for someone else?

>I mean isn't this the point of open source?

Only if you just found what open source is.

In actuality, successful open source projects recruit developers by providing value to them. If there's a failure before you even install the product, there's 0 reason for someone to start contributing right away, why not start their own project at that point? Contributing 1 to something that has 0 value is a donation in exchange for nothing, not how Open Source usually works.

Never said you can't.

You can fix it though.

> So, volunteer time for free for someone else?

Yes.

You have a problem with it and you found a problem, you can fix it instead of complaining to me about it.

Problem solved.

That benefits everyone rather than forking a project and starting all over again and wasting effort.

I cannot reproduce the problem (It isn't mine to solve), so I can't fix this.

But since you're complaining about it, you can!