A Show HN debut for Academa, a tool that treats a lecture as code an LLM writes and a compiler renders into video with graphics and text-to-speech — no AI video models, and generated in about 25 minutes.
2026-08-31 · by Moe Ameen
Published 2026-08-31 · Updated
Short answer
Academa is a tool that generates long-form STEM lecture videos with language models, launched in a Show HN post on August 30, 2026. It writes each lecture as code that a compiler renders with computer graphics and text-to-speech, so it uses no AI video models. Its library has 70+ lectures of 9 to 22 minutes, and a new lecture takes about 25 minutes. Plus costs $20 a month.
Key takeaways
On August 30, 2026, Academa launched publicly with a Show HN post, positioning itself as a tool that generates long-form STEM lecture videos using large language models. Founded by Sina Atalay and Abdullah Geduk, it covers technical subjects including computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, machine learning, economics, and engineering, and ships with a hand-curated library of 70+ lectures running roughly 9 to 22 minutes. You can also request a lecture on a technical topic and have one generated in about 25 minutes.
The idea underneath it is what makes it notable. Instead of treating a lecture as a finished video file, Academa treats it as code: an instructor's actions — say a line, write an equation, circle a term — are described procedurally in a custom "lectures-as-code" language, and a compiler renders that description into video using computer graphics and text-to-speech. Because the lecture is code, an LLM can write it, a mistake can be corrected with an edit rather than a re-record, and the same lecture can be reissued in another language as a first-class version rather than a dub or a subtitle track.
On Hacker News the founder said Academa does not use AI video-generation models at all. An LLM — he named Claude Opus 5 with high thinking — writes a full lecture in a single shot, and a lighter model powers the interactive question-and-answer feature layered on top; the deterministic graphics-and-TTS render keeps the cost far below generating video directly.
Academa's pricing lists a free tier (one video generation a month, limited chat with videos), a Plus plan at $20/month (ten generations a month, extensive chat), and a custom Enterprise tier with API access and 30+ languages. It is a brand-new product, so expect the library, limits, and pricing to keep moving; confirm current details on academa.ai.
There are two ways to move on this today. If you cover AI or edtech, ride the launch: drop "Academa just shipped LLM-generated STEM lectures built on a lectures-as-code engine" into Kompozy's Quick Ingest and fan that single beat into a Text Post, an X thread, a LinkedIn Carousel, a captioned Persona Short explaining why code-rendered lectures undercut AI video models, and a blog explainer — then schedule and publish the set across the nine social platforms plus blog and email the same afternoon.
The more durable play is for educators and technical creators. A 15-minute Academa lecture is a learning asset, not feed content, and closing that gap is exactly what Kompozy does. Take the concept you would teach (or a lecture you generated) into Kompozy and it builds the distributed version Academa doesn't: Clipped Shorts that cut a long explainer into captioned 9:16 segments for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts; a Carousel that walks through the key steps; Quote Graphics of the core result; a Blog Article for search; and a Persona or HeyGen avatar that narrates the idea on camera in your brand voice, governed by your Persona Brief. Academa teaches the topic inside its own player; Kompozy turns your expertise into an on-brand series published everywhere your audience already scrolls.
A listicle video made in Kompozy. An educator could cut a short, feed-ready piece like this from a longer lesson.
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Academa is a tool that generates long-form STEM lecture videos with large language models, launched publicly on August 30, 2026 by Sina Atalay and Abdullah Geduk. It offers a curated library plus on-demand generation across subjects like math, physics, computer science, and machine learning, and you can chat with a lecture as you watch.
It treats a lecture as code. An LLM writes the lesson in a custom "lectures-as-code" language that describes each action procedurally, and a compiler renders that into video using computer graphics and text-to-speech. The founder said an LLM (Claude Opus 5 with high thinking) writes a lecture in one shot; the deterministic render keeps costs far below generating video directly.
Academa lists a free tier with one video generation a month and limited chat, a Plus plan at $20/month with ten generations a month and extensive chat, and a custom Enterprise tier with API access and 30+ languages. It is a new product, so confirm current pricing on academa.ai.
They share a founder (Sina Atalay) but are different products. Academa generates long-form LLM lecture videos with a lectures-as-code engine; Academa Studio is a browser-based Manim animation editor that renders 3Blue1Brown-style math animations on your GPU via WebGPU.
We checked every figure, date, quote and product claim on this page against the sources listed below on 2026-10-23, and removed or rewrote anything we could not confirm. Product, pricing and library details come from academa.ai. The model and cost details come from the founders' Hacker News comments. Kompozy platform and format details come from kompozy.io.
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