Launch HN: SIM Studio (YC X25) – Figma-Like Canvas for Agent Workflows
Sim Studio lets you build agents with different models, tools, and custom functions. In minutes, you can deploy a research agent. Demo here - https://youtu.be/F6MqNvnfxbI
We started working on Sim Studio because we were frustrated with agent frameworks that required excessive boilerplate code and unhelpful abstractions (like agent roles and backstories). We also tried other visual interfaces, but found them difficult to set up and too limited for production use cases. Specifically, we wanted the ability to write custom functions, force tool calls, and run parallel execution.
We’re taking a different approach. Our visual canvas lets you explicitly define how agents interact, use external tools, and handle complex logic like branching, loops, and conditional execution. You can seamlessly integrate with popular tools like Supabase, Pinecone, Mem0, and Exa without obscure abstractions.
You can simulate workflow runs, deploy workflows as APIs or standalone chat interfaces, and trigger them via webhooks. We offer built-in observability, detailed trace spans, and logs that make debugging straightforward. Try searching yourself below:
Example message for https://hn.simstudio.ai:
- Search [person] from [company] - "Search Emir Karabeg from Sim Studio"
Check out our Apache 2.0 licensed repo at https://github.com/simstudioai/sim, explore our docs at https://docs.simstudio.ai, or try out our deployed chat from the demo video here: https://hn.simstudio.ai.
We’d love to hear your feedback! Do you think our visual solution is a good approach to building agents?
Surely the first thing I should be presented with is a prompt window that can help be scaffold out the orchestration.
Site looks great!
A few points on this:
- Super intuitive & highly configurable visual canvas where there are no abstractions over the model providers' parameters
- Seamlessly works with the dev tools everyone uses (supabase, pinecone, mem0, exa)
- Handles complexities like branching, loops, and concurrency by default
- Built-in debugging that actually makes sense (with trace spans and logs)
- Actually open source (apache 2.0)
2. Any plans for integrating MCP servers? I’m looking to build a WhatsApp based Text to SQL service and this seems like a solid fit, but I’d like to use an MCP server that groks the business domain to query supabase. Any suggestions on how to pull this off?
1) we are completely open source and you can self-host it if you so please. for the hosted platform, we have a free tier to let you tinker and get some free inference credits, and then we have a pro plan with is $20 worth of inference, team plan with $40. we only charge for inference, not to use the platform
2) we are planning on integrating with MCP servers, although hesitatn because its a newer protocol and may not be here to stay (might be a hot take). in the meantime, we have pre-built integrations for whatsapp & supabase, so you can definitely build this out today
I had the honor of meeting these founders in person, and was pretty inspired by how fast these guys ship features and iterate on the product with their customers. Definitely the best React Flow work I've ever seen!
no, it is overrated. there are many many canvas workflow builders like this one. they're all beautiful, intuitive and easy to use. they all also dont get traction. go ahead, name one that everyone else here will know. its weird but theres a huge gulf here between what people think they want and what people really use outside the figma/excalidraw/tldraw/miro/canva space
Really cool platform, so I'm interested in using it!