Calling Reddit a CRUD app isn’t wrong, it’s just vacuous.

It strips away every part that actually makes Reddit hard.

What happens when you sign up?

A CRUD app shows a form and inserts a row.

Reddit runs bot detection, rate limits, fingerprinting, shadow restrictions, and abuse heuristics you don’t even see, and you don’t know which ones, because that knowledge is their moat.

What happens when you upvote or downvote?

CRUD says “increment a counter.”

Reddit says “run a ranking algorithm refined over years, with vote fuzzing, decay, abuse detection, and intentional lies in the UI.” As the number you see is not the number stored.

What happens when you add a comment?

CRUD says “insert record.”

Reddit applies subreddit-specific rules, spam filters, block lists, automod logic, visibility rules, notifications, and delayed or conditional propagation.

What happens when you post a URL?

CRUD stores a string.

Reddit fingerprints it, deduplicates it, fetches metadata, detects spam domains, applies subreddit constraints, and feeds it into ranking and moderation systems.

Yes, anyone can scaffold a CRUD app and style it like Reddit.

But calling that a clone is like putting white lines on your lawn and calling it the Bernabeu.

You haven’t cloned the system, only its silhouette.