# "They don't have to install anything": a screen-sharing tool one person built with Claude gets 4,000 stars in 80 days · GitHub open-source project

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/github/gh_TNTcraftHIM__Piik.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> In China there's no good tool for privately sharing your screen with friends (WeChat is blurry, meetings require joining, Discord doesn't work, remote control means handing over the whole computer). The author kicked things off with a Bilibili video titled around "burning 10B tokens," and UPers,吾爱破解, software sites, and cloud-drive accounts then passed it along for free.

[GitHub open-source project](https://stringers.io/en/github/index.md) · written 11-6

TNTcraftHIM/Piik · TNTcraftHIM

# "They don't have to install anything": a screen-sharing tool one person built with Claude gets 4,000 stars in 80 days

**What it is** A free, open-source screen-sharing tool: pick a window, generate a link, and up to 20 friends can watch in a browser, with no install and no sign-up.

**Why it took off** In China there was no good way to privately show your screen to friends (WeChat is blurry, meetings need joining, Discord doesn't work, remote-control tools mean handing over your whole computer). The author kicked it off with a Bilibili video titled "burned 10B tokens", and UPs, Chinese cracking forums, software sites, and cloud-drive accounts then reshared it for free.

**B** **How you could follow** Don't build another Chinese screen-sharing tool. Find features that "big tech has but China lacks" and ship them as an install-free link version, or cover what Piik left out: a relay fallback, a phone as host. On launch day, make your own Bilibili video using an AI story as the hook.

Grade B: the playbook is clear and copyable, and it cost nothing, but the gap is now held by a very fast-moving author. Following it means changing features or markets, and finding another gap this painful is a bet. Chatter in small circles

Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-08-18 · 4,131 stars · 7 days +187

GitHub · stars

Data 2026-10-02 → 2026-11-08 (38 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

A developer with only about a thousand Bilibili followers used AI to write a screen-sharing tool, Piik: pick a window, send one link, and up to 20 friends can watch in a browser, with no install, no sign-up, and no time limit. It hit 4,091 stars in 80 days (GitHub, 11-06), with zero money spent on promotion. Its stars came from a gap every Chinese user has run into, plus Bilibili and software-sharing circles reposting it for free for over a month. Below: what it is, where the stars came from, who's competing, and the steps you could copy if you want a project to earn stars the same way.

### A 1-minute 17-second video

On 12 2026 at 3 p.m., Bilibili UP "绿瓶老头" (158k followers, Bilibili profile 11-06) posted a 1 min 17 sec video titled "We burned 10B tokens and built Piik, a free screen-sharing tool, and the result…" The credits list three people: 绿瓶老头 is the uploader, and "TNTcraft" handled development, the owner of the GitHub account TNTcraftHIM, whose own Bilibili account has only 1,119 followers. The same day, v1.0.0 was released on GitHub.

The description is plain: "Download and open it, pick a screen to share, and invite friends to watch. Viewers join from a browser." It also admits two weak spots: the public demo server uses a pure P2P connection, and the macOS and Linux builds "haven't been tested on real hardware for capture yet."

As of 11-06, this video has 108k views and 9,507 favorites on Bilibili. But the most-viewed one isn't this. In Sep 21, a resource account called "Xinghai Share" posted a tutorial whose title spells out the selling point: "Its biggest feature is that the other person doesn't need to install anything. Send an invite and they can watch together in their browser." The account has only 1,135 followers, and its bio reads "sharing all kinds of hot resources, grab them from the bio or comments." Yet this video got 109k views and 12k favorites (Bilibili page, 11-06). A small account with no background reposting it still pulled 100k+ views. People shared it for the tool itself.

### What gap it fills

If you want to show your screen to a friend in another city, the tools Chinese users have all fall a bit short:

| Plan | Problem |
|---|---|
| WeChat / QQ screen share | Blurry picture. A Smzdm article put it as "like looking through frosted glass" |
| Tencent Meeting / Feishu | You have to create a meeting, join, and log in. The free tier has time limits |
| ToDesk / Sunlogin | Both sides install software and enter verification codes, and you hand over the whole computer |
| Discord Go Live | The default choice for overseas gamers, basically unusable in China |
| Bilibili / Tencent Video "watch together" | You can only watch the platform's own content |

Piik works like this: the host installs an app (or just opens the web version), picks the whole screen, a single window, a browser tab, or the camera, and copies an invite link to send. The viewer opens it in the browser on their phone, tablet, or computer. Only the selected window is shared, so if you switch to WeChat in the background, the viewer can't see it. The video streams directly between participants and never passes through the author's server, so the author has no bandwidth cost, which is why it can be free, watermark-free, and unlimited in time. If you want more stability, you can deploy your own server, which relays the stream when a direct connection fails.

Who uses it, as shown in comments and reviews, is very specific: long-distance couples watching shows together, friends watching someone play games during co-op, and people demoing software to clients or elders. On GitHub, 59 issues, 53 of them have Chinese titles (GitHub, 11-06), so users are almost all in the Chinese-speaking world.

### Where the stars came from

In chronological order:

1. **9-12, the first video goes up.** It was posted on a UP creator's account with 158k followers, using "burned 10B tokens" as the hook. In 2026, AI coding was hot, and "made by AI" itself was the draw. The author was later told in the comments, "Heavy Claude vibes," and replied, "Yes, it really is Claude" (Smzdm, 10-24).

2. **Starting 9-14, the software-sharing circuit picked it up. Pojie forum 9-14 posted it with the title "said to be made by burning 10B tokens"; a green-software site 9-15; GitHubDaily on X 9-17 recommended it, 5,304 views.**

3. **Around 9-21, UP creators review it.** That includes the Xinghai Share video above, plus a multi-thousand-word long review on Zhihu from 9-23, and self-posted notes on Xiaohongshu from September (168 likes, 210 favorites). By 9-25, the repo had only 600 more stars (Smzdm, 9-25), and the buzz was still mainly on Bilibili.

4. **Around National Day, a repost wave.** From 9-28 to 10-12, dozens of software sites, resource sites, Telegram channels and netdisk accounts pushed it out in bulk. On Weibo there are netdisk bundles labeled "Edition 1177", and YouTube Chinese repost channels pin the download link in the top comment. On Bilibili there are a dozen or two videos on the same topic, with titles like "733 Stars" and "3.2k Stars", and every time the star count climbs another round of reposts follows. The version with the most downloads, v1.9.2 (10-06,9,389 downloads), and the single day with the biggest star gain, 10-13 (+131), both came in this wave. As of 10-16, the star count is 3,207.

5. **10-22, the second video.** Still from the Lvhu Laotou account: "Burned 20B tokens, and we built a free screen-share and remote co-op tool!" It pushed the "remote control handoff" in 2.x: after the host approves, friends can take over the keyboard, mouse, or controller and play together. By 11-06 it had 35k views. Afterward, v2.5.0 (10-26) was downloaded 6,527 times.

The English-speaking world largely didn't pick it up: it was posted once on Product Hunt, with 9-18 votes and 1 votes; not found on Hacker News; never on GitHub Trending; only a few short videos from AI tool accounts. No paid promotion or media coverage was found.

The 44 versions add up to about 59.5k downloads (GitHub Releases, 11-06), more than ten times the star count, including repeat downloads and updates. At that ratio, not many people starred it and then never used it; the number of real users is probably large (inference).

### Iterating fast enough to catch the traffic

In 80 days it shipped 44 versions, and 447 of its 464 PRs were submitted by the author himself (GitHub, 11-06). The pace clearly looks like AI-written code. The most common questions in the review sections were "Can we have a voice call?", "Is there a Linux version?", and "Can it be remote-controlled?" All were delivered within weeks: v1.6 added host microphone and camera, v1.7 added chat, and 2.x added in-room voice and remote control handoff. Each major release gave the reposting accounts new material. It also built domestic mirrors on Gitee and AtomGit, and the interface follows the system language and defaults to Chinese, so downloading and getting started are smooth in China.

### Who's competing for this spot

| Project | Scale | How it differs from Piik |
|---|---|---|
| screego | 10.7k stars, 2020 years | Also browser-based direct connection, but aimed at developers holding meetings, and you have to self-host |
| MiroTalk | 4,830 star | A video conferencing tool, not for showing your screen to friends |
| screensy | 575 star | Minimalist direct connection with few features, no longer really maintained |
| SyncWatch | 143 stars, created the same day as Piik | Syncs playback of video files rather than sharing the screen |
| Hyperbeam / Kosmi | Web product | Cloud browser; cost means limits or fees |
| Parsec / Steam Remote Play Together | Mature product | Both sides need the client installed or an account |

Each feature alone exists elsewhere, but no one has them all: no install or account needed for viewers, free and unlimited, sharing only chosen windows, Chinese interface, and direct connection works in China. Some Bilibili reposts simply titled their video "Piik is probably unrivaled in this track." The copycats so far are one fork with added access hardening, one Railway one-click deployment template, and a pile of cloud-drive repackages. No standalone clones.

Its weaknesses are clear too. Pure direct connection fails on campus networks, corporate networks, and some mobile networks, and the public invite mode has no relay fallback. Bilibili comments include someone "stuck at connecting P2P, retrying forever" and someone "phone on WiFi shows the screen, but mobile data doesn't work" (Smzdm, 10-24). The author's standard reply is "check the official site's troubleshooting and use a virtual LAN." Growth is also slowing: +7 in the last 202 days, +7 in the 364 days before that (GitHub daily stars, 11-06).

### If it were you

**B: Worth a try. The opening is there, but with clear shortcomings.** Building a Chinese screen-share tool now is late. Piik already holds the spot and is updating several versions a week. What's worth copying is the playbook: find a scenario where overseas tools exist but Chinese users can't use them or find them awkward, build a Chinese version that's install-free, account-free, and has zero server cost, then post it on Bilibili and let resource accounts and software sites spread it. The playbook has no celebrity barrier. The developer himself had only a thousand followers. There are two weak points. First, the launch borrowed a UP creator with 158k followers, and you may not have one nearby. Second, "burned N hundred million tokens" has become a standard Bilibili title type. On a single recommendation page there are "burned 10B+ tokens to build asset management software" and "multi-device interconnect with 4B tokens," so the hook is getting stale.

**Who it suits:** individual developers who can ship quickly with AI and are willing to release a version a day; people who have a Bilibili UP creator friend willing to post the first video, or who have their own account with tens of thousands of followers; and products that an ordinary person understands in one sentence and can use right after clicking.

**Who it doesn't suit:** anyone planning yet another Chinese screen-share tool; developer tools that need self-hosting before they can be used (screego has 10k stars and never broke out, while Piik spread among ordinary people); and anyone counting on Hacker News or Product Hunt for traffic (Piik got 1 votes there).

**How to build it:** three paths. ① Copy the approach with a different scenario: the same "send a link and they can use it" idea, for example listening to music together remotely, watching local video files together, or transferring files across phones and computers. Use direct connection or local computing to push server costs to zero, which is what makes "free forever" credible. ② Do the parts Piik hasn't done well: a relay fallback for restricted networks (such as a one-click deployable relay) and screen sharing from phones itself. Comments keep asking for both. ③ Build for another language: Piik has no push in the English-speaking world, and the need for install-free viewing where Discord falls short also exists there (inference, not verified). But English-speaking markets need their own channels, and the Bilibili playbook won't transfer.

**How to acquire users:** launch with a one-minute-ish Bilibili video whose title states the selling point directly ("the other person doesn't need to install any software" works ten times better than explaining the tech). Put three entry points in the bio: the official site, GitHub, and the Gitee mirror. Then post on Pediy, Lvruan, and similar sites, and let resource accounts and repost accounts handle the rest. Pair each major release with a new video to give the repost accounts fresh material. Put the star count clearly in the README and title, so people repost it with the number included.

**When to start:** the "free tools written by AI" wave is still going, Bilibili titles of this kind keep multiplying, and the later you start, the harder it is to stand out with a title. Plan by the month, don't wait until next year. Pick a scenario nobody has claimed yet, because once someone gets 100k views on Bilibili, that spot is basically locked.

**Signs you've misread it:** ① You follow this playbook, post the video and get on software sites, and after a month you have only a few hundred stars. That would mean Piik's wave relied mostly on borrowed 158k followers and the National Day holiday, not on the playbook itself. ② WeChat or Tencent Meeting adds sharper quality and "view by link directly," and the gap in the Chinese market closes faster than you'd expect. ③ Conversely, if a fork of Piik that specializes in a relay fallback or phone screen sharing climbs to several hundred stars, then "doing what Piik didn't do well" is viable, and you should move on it quickly.

[GitHub repo ↗](https://github.com/TNTcraftHIM/Piik)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discord Go Live | Big-company features | 2019 | The default choice for overseas gamers | Discord requires both sides to install a client and register an account, and is basically unusable in China. Piik viewers use the browser and need no account. |
| WeChat/QQ screen share, Tencent Meeting | Big-company features | Years | The largest installed base in China | These tools have blurry picture quality, require creating and joining meetings, and have time limits. Piik is a private link with adjustable quality and no time limit. |
| ToDesk / Sunlogin | Other | Years | Tens of millions of users | Remote control requires both sides to install software and enter verification codes, and hands over the whole machine. Piik shares only the chosen window, and control requires the host's approval. |
| Bilibili/Tencent Video watch-together, Teleparty, Rave, Watch2gether | Big-company features | Years | Big | These can only sync content from within the platform. Piik shares the screen, so any content or game works. |
| Hyperbeam / Kosmi | Web | 2021 | Hyperbeam, 323 votes on Product Hunt | These are cloud browsers, with costs and limits. Piik uses P2P with zero server cost and is free forever. |
| Parsec / Steam Remote Play Together | Other | Years | Mature | Both sides need the client installed or an account. Piik viewers can watch from the browser and can also take over control. |
| screego/server | Open source | 2020-07 | 10,747 stars | Built for developers holding meetings, requires self-hosting. Piik has a desktop app and public temporary invites, with a Chinese interface, so ordinary people can use it. |
| MiroTalk | Open source | 2021-01 | 4,830 stars | Built as a video conferencing tool, not for showing your screen to friends. |
| screensy | Open source | 2021-02 | 575 stars | Minimalist P2P with few features, no longer really maintained. |
| SyncWatch | Open source | 2026-08-18 | 143 stars | Syncs playback of video files rather than sharing the screen |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **The author's own Bilibili video (AI token-burning narrative)** : BV1weYR65Ed5 "Burned 10B tokens, and we built a free screen-share, Piik", posted the same day as v1.0.0 on 2026-09-12, 108k views; the second one, BV1tPnp6hEDi "Burned 20B tokens… remote co-op tool," 35k views 10-22

- **Verified** **Bilibili UP-host reviews and reposts** : search "Piik" on Bilibili and you get 20-30 videos on the same topic, titles with "733 Stars" and "3.2k Stars"; 9-21 one video got 3 days to hit 2000+ favorites (smzdm 9-25 article)

- **Verified** **software-sharing sites, forums, cloud-drive accounts, Telegram** :52pojie 9-14, Lvruan 9-15, ababtools 9-28, Xiaoyi 9-30, APP Cat 10-04, Lewozhi 10-05, Jianke 10-07, Dream Gaming Forum 10-07; Weibo cloud-drive collection tagged 'Code 1177'; iplc.best TG 10-06

- **Verified** **Chinese tech accounts on X** : GitHubDaily 2026-09-17 post, 5,304 views; Geek Lite @QingQ77 9-15 reposts

- **Verified** **Zhihu, smzdm, and Xiaohongshu long posts and organic posts** : Zhihu 9-23 long review; smzdm 9-25, 10-24 two posts; Xiaohongshu September中 organic post, 168 likes, 210 saves (per smzdm)

- **Verified** **English short-video accounts** : Facebook and Instagram AI-tool accounts; TikTok @gitttrend (Indonesian) 10-05 14.9k views; LinkedIn marketing accounts; small scale

- Inferred **HN / Product Hunt / GitHub trending** : no HN entry in the database; PH 9-18 launched once, only 1 votes; trending_days_any=0

## Why Piik (TNTcraftHIM/Piik) took off

> Channel: GitHub · repo added 2026-08-18 · research day 2026-11-06

### One line

Piik is an open-source P2P screen-sharing tool an indie dev wrote with Claude. The host installs the app (or opens a web page), picks a window or tab, and sends a link to up to 20 friends. They watch in a browser: no install, no sign-up, no time limit. It took off by filling **a gap for Chinese users** : WeChat/QQ screen sharing is blurry, Tencent Meeting needs a room join and has time limits, Discord doesn't work in China, and ToDesk/Sunflower require both sides to install software and hand over the whole machine. The author's own Bilibili video, "We Burned 10B Tokens and Built a Free Screen Share, Piik," was the spark, and dozens of UP主, software sites and cloud-drive accounts followed.

### 1. Data

| Metric | value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | 4,091 (11-06), 4,105 (same-day GitHub API) | Data card / GitHub API |
| Forks | 253 | Data card |
| 30 new stars in the last few days | +2,497 | Data card |
| last 7 days / previous 7 days | +202 / +364 (slowing) | Data card |
| Single-day peak | +131(2026-10-13) | Data card |
| Star milestones | About 600+ (9-25, smzdm article); about 3,657 (10-24, smzdm article); 3,207 (10-16) → 4,091 (11-06) | [smzdm 9-25](https://post.smzdm.com/p/a260r287/), [smzdm 10-24](https://post.smzdm.com/p/aomv3979/), data card |
| Total release downloads | About 59,500 downloads across 44 releases (v1.0.0 9-12 → v2.5.3 11-03); top single release v1.9.2 (10-06) with 9,389 downloads, v2.5.0 (10-26) with 6,527 downloads | GitHub Releases API,11-06 |
| Issue / PR | 59 issues, of which 53 have Chinese titles; 464 PRs, 447 submitted by the author | GitHub API,11-06 |
| Trending | Never trended (trending_days_any=0) | Data card |
| Revenue | No. MIT license, completely free; no sponsorship, paid tier, or hosted fee on the website or README | piik.tv, README |

Takeaway: real users are mostly Chinese speakers (about 90% of issues are in Chinese), and downloads are roughly 15 times the star count, so people are not just bookmarking it; many are actually using it. Releases ship almost daily: 80 releases and 44 author-submitted PRs in 447 days, and the AI-coding pace is obvious (the author admitted in Bilibili comments, "yes, it really is Claude," see smzdm article 10-24).

### 2. Competitors

| Competitors | Type | Launch / scale | How it differs from Piik |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discord Go Live | Big-company features | Default choice for overseas players since 2019 | Both sides must install Discord and create accounts; free-tier video quality is limited; basically unusable in mainland China. Piik viewers need no install and no account, and it connects directly in China |
| WeChat / QQ screen sharing, Tencent Meeting | Big-company features | The largest installed base in China | Blurry picture (mentioned in the GitHubDaily post and smzdm article); meetings must be created, joined, and logged into, and the free version has time limits. Piik is positioned for privately showing your screen to friends, and quality is adjustable (up to 4K at 2.0 fps cap, with 240fps) |
| ToDesk / Sunlogin | Domestic remote-control tools | Tens of millions of users | Both sides install software and enter verification codes; you hand over control of the whole computer. Piik only shares the window you select, and control must be approved by the host (2.x added remote-control handover) |
| Bilibili / Tencent Video "watch together," Teleparty, Rave, Watch2gether | Watch-together features | Years | Only sync content from the platform's own catalog. Piik shares the screen, so any video or game works |
| Hyperbeam, Kosmi | Web | Hyperbeam 2021 on PH (323 votes) | Cloud browsers that cost money or have limits; Piik is direct P2P with no server cost, which is why it can stay free forever |
| Parsec, Steam Remote Play Together | Game remote play | Mature product | Both sides need the client or a Steam account; Piik viewers only need a browser, and even a player who receives control only needs a browser |
| screego/server | Open source | 2020 years, 10,747 stars | Built for developers' meetings and requires self-hosting; Piik has a desktop app, temporary public invites, and a Chinese interface, so ordinary people can use it |
| MiroTalk | Open source | 2021 years, 4,830 stars | Used for video calls, not "screen viewing" |
| screensy | Open source | 2021 years, 575 stars | Simple P2P with few features; no longer maintained |
| xuange6610/SyncWatch | Open source | Created the same day as Piik (2026-08-18), 143 stars | Syncs playback of video files rather than sharing the screen |

(GitHub competitor data from the repo_profile table in the github database; PH data from the producthunt database)

Plenty of products do this, but none in the Chinese market combine all of these: viewers need no install and no account, it's free with no time limit, it's in Chinese, it connects directly in China, and it shares only the window you choose. On Bilibili, a reposted video is titled outright "Piik may have no rivals in this track" (BV13qhR6sEk5).

### 3. Growth: where users came from

Timeline (ordered by evidence):

1. **2026-09-12 The author posted their own Bilibili video, same day as v1.0.0 release** : "We burned 10B tokens and built a free screen-sharing app, Piik, and the result..." (BV1weYR65Ed5). It has 108k views so far, the highest-viewed Piik-related video. Using AI token burn as the hook was the spark for the spread. [Bilibili](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1weYR65Ed5/)

2. **From 9-14, the software-sharing scene followed** :52pojie 9-14 posted a thread titled "said to be built by burning 10B tokens" (the thread was deleted but still appears in Exa search results); Lvruan site 9-15; on X, Geek Lite @QingQ 77 9-15 reposts; **GitHubDaily 9-17 recommended it on X, 5,304 views** . [X](https://x.com/GitHub_Daily/status/2100525186290487362)

3. **9-21 前后 B 站 UP 主测评** :一条 9-21 的视频 3 天拿到 2,000+ 收藏,收藏和播放的比是 1:7;知乎 9-23 发了几千字的长测;小红书 9 月中有自发推荐帖,赞 168、收藏 210(smzdm 文的说法)。[smzdm 9-25](https://post.smzdm.com/p/a260r287/)

4. **National Day wave (9-28 to 10-12) of reposts** : dozens of software and resource sites reposted it at once, including ababtools 9-28, Xiaoyi 9-30, APP Cat 10-04, Lewozhi 10-05, Jianke 10-07, Taiwan's Dream Gaming Forum 10-07, Xiangle Sharing 10-12; Telegram channels (iplc.best 10-06); also cloud-drive traffic accounts. A Weibo cloud-drive collection post labeled "Code 1177", and Chinese YouTube reposts with download links pinned in the top comment. Bilibili has a dozen or two reposted review videos with titles like "733 Stars" and "3.2k Stars"; every time the star count rose, someone reposted again. v1.9.2 (10-06) got 9,389 downloads, and the single-day high of +131 stars came on 10-13, both within this wave. There was also one Indonesian-language TikTok (@gitttrend, 10-515k views).

5. **10-22 The author posted a second Bilibili video** : "We burned 20B tokens and built a free screen-sharing and remote co-play tool!" (BV1tPnp6hEDi), with 35k views; at the time of the smzdm count it had 14k views, 1,500+ favorites, and 149 comments. This one pushed 2.x's "remote-control handover / remote co-play." Afterward v2.5.0 (10-26) got 6,527 downloads.

6. **Only scattered spread in English-speaking circles** : Facebook and Instagram have short videos from AI-tool accounts, LinkedIn has marketing accounts, and there are tutorials by Stride AI Academy and a one-click Railway deploy template (10-03). The HN and PH databases show no real launch: PH had one launch with only 9-18 votes (1).

None found: paid acquisition, HN front-page posts, GitHub trending, media coverage.

**Acquisition takeaway** : the author's own Bilibili video kicked it off ("AI burns tokens" as the hook), then the Chinese software-sharing ecosystem amplified it for free: UP-host reviews,52pojie, software sites, cloud-drive accounts, Telegram. No money was spent.

### 4. Why it took off

1. **Clear, painful use cases** : long-distance couples watching shows together, letting friends watch you play games, teaching parents how to use a computer. Existing tools for Chinese users each fall short: WeChat sharing is blurry, meeting software requires joining and has time limits, remote control hands over the whole machine, and Discord doesn't work in mainland China. The smzdm article has a comparison table concluding that only Piik requires nothing from the other side, no software and no login.

2. **Zero-friction for viewers** : send a link, and the other person watches in a phone browser. "Nothing to install on their end" became the headline of nearly every repost, so it spreads without needing explanation.

3. **P2P makes free and unlimited possible** : the picture doesn't pass through a server, so the author has no bandwidth cost, which allows "no watermark, no time limit" (title of Bilibili repost BV1Wtsd6ZEwb).

4. **The "burned 10B tokens" narrative** : 2026 AI coding was hot, and the author made "built with AI" the selling point. Reposts on sites like52pojie and the Birch Blog kept the phrasing, and the second video raised the number to "20B" and kept using it as the hook.

5. **Iteration fast enough to catch the traffic** : 80 days, 44 releases shipped. Features users asked for in issues (voice chat, text chat, remote control, Linux/Android builds) were built within weeks (v1.6 added host microphone, v1.7 added chat, 2.x added remote-control handover and room voice), and each major release became new material for reposts.

6. **Keeps domestic downloads fast** : also ships Gitee/AtomGit mirrors, Chinese first, so users in China download smoothly.

### 5. Differentiation

There are plenty of similar products, and Piik's edge is the combination: **no install or account for viewers in the browser + P2P direct connection, free with no time limit + only the chosen window is shared, and control requires approval + Chinese UI and domestic mirrors + you can self-host an SFU as a fallback** . Taken one at a time, others have each piece. For example, screego is also a browser P2P tool, and Discord also lets you watch together. But Piik is the only one that puts all of it together for ordinary Chinese users. This edge is also why it spread: nearly all the promo material says "the other person doesn't need to install anything," and that's what users actually want.

Weak spots (they'll limit how far it goes): pure P2P fails to connect on campus networks, corporate networks, and some mobile networks, and the public-internet invite mode has no relay fallback (there are failure cases in two smzdm articles and in the Bilibili comments). The macOS and Linux versions haven't been tested much on real devices. And there's no revenue, so how long the author can keep investing is an open question.

### 6. How many people know about it

**Spreading in small circles** : it's spread widely in Chinese "free software / GitHub gems" circles, including dozens of Bilibili videos,吾爱破解, software sites, cloud-drive accounts, two long smzdm articles, and GitHubDaily also featured it. But there's no media coverage, no HN, PH, or GitHub trending, and the English world has only scattered short-video accounts. With no revenue, there's no revenue to disclose either. Growth is slowing (last 7 days +202, first 7 days +364).

### 7. Copycats and clones

- MCdoctor778/Piik: a patched fork, labeled "access hardening" (in the 10-24 smzdm article).

- There's a one-click Piik deploy template on Railway (station.railway.com, 10-03).

- Repackaged and redistributed on cloud drives, e.g. the Weibo "编号1177" compilations; YouTube reupload accounts use it to drive cloud-drive traffic.

- No standalone clones yet, and no commercial rip-offs spotted.

- Watch for name collisions: a Japanese social app also called "Piik: Friends on Home Screen" (iOS/Android, official TikTok account with 156k views) has nothing to do with this project, so exclude it from searches and data.

### 8. What to borrow

- **Find scenarios Big Tech has but China lacks** : features like Discord's aren't usable domestically, so build a lightweight, Chinese-language alternative that needs no install and no account.

- **Use P2P or local computing to push server costs to zero** , so "free forever" is a claim you can actually make, and free use brings in word-of-mouth traffic.

- **Make "built with AI" itself the hook** : the author posts Bilibili videos with the token usage right in the title, then lets UPers and software-site communities amplify it. Each major release gives another round of material to repost.

- **Domestic mirrors plus Chinese docs** , lowering the barrier to download and getting started.

### 9. Still unclear

- Which piece of content drove the +131 stars on day 10-13 hasn't been verified. It may have been a Bilibili or Douyin video from the National Day repost wave; I couldn't check Douyin.

- How many of the first Bilibili video's 108k views came in the week of release: the Bilibili API was blocked, so I couldn't get this.

- Actual number of users: about 59.5k downloads, including repeat downloads and auto-updates; usage of the online demo at demo.piik.tv is unknown.

- Whether the author will later offer hosted relays, charge, or use it to win client work: no sign of any commercial intent so far.

- Star time series: the stargazers endpoint returned 404, and then the GitHub API hit rate limits, so day-by-day data for September through October can only be estimated from two data points in the smzdm article.

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.