Hey HN,
Built this over the past month to solve my own tab management problem. Chrome was eating 8GB RAM with 50+ tabs open.
*What it does:* - Saves/restores tab sessions with one click - Auto-suspends idle tabs after 30min (uses Chrome's discard API) - Search across all saved sessions - Everything stored locally (no servers)
*Tech decisions:*
Went with vanilla JS instead of React for performance: - React prototype: ~450ms load time - Vanilla version: ~180ms
For something you open 20+ times daily, that 270ms matters. Tradeoff was losing reactive state management, but worth it for the speed.
Manifest V3 compliance was easier without framework dependencies.
*Current state:* - 600 active users (started 3 weeks ago) - ~30k tabs saved - <2MB total size - MIT licensed code (considering open source)
*Challenges:*
1. State management without React - rolled custom pub/sub pattern 2. Chrome's tab API rate limits - had to batch operations 3. Storage quota management - compression + cleanup logic 4. Cross-session data consistency
*What I learned:*
Performance matters more than I thought. Users notice the difference between 200ms and 500ms when it's a frequently-used tool.
Privacy-first approach resonated - every competitor tracks usage. Going 100% local was the right call.
Happy to answer technical questions or hear feedback on the approach.
Link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tab-master-save-tab...