This is a really simple question that I’ve been unable to answer. When was WaniKani created and what sort of betas, early history, or other stuff was there? I spent a reasonable amount of time searching a while back, and just could not find it. The closest I can guess is early 2017 from the ages of the oldest threads.
Edit: At this point, it’s clearly from 2012. Is there any sort of source / info about precise launch dates, release dates, additions of new kanji, or that sort of thing?
I’ve been using WK since 2014 
That’s kind of surprising. Are all those old threads buried somewhere? Was there even a community forum back then?
They transitioned to discourse for the forums in 2017. But the site had existed for years before that. Perhaps 2012? Or earlier?
I don’t remember there being a community that far back, though that could certainly be a lapse in memory on my part, as that was quite a while ago! I do believe it was introduced later…
That would explain the sudden drop-off of threads, but what I’m looking for more is stuff like when the site was first opened (the forum threads were just something I was using to guess). Now that I think about it, I’ll try referencing the Wayback Machine.
Edit: the first save is this beta from 2012, which would make sense (they stayed in beta for like 4 years, gaah).
There are six forum topics created before 2012-08-01:
https://community.wanikani.com/search?q=before%3A2012-08-01%20date%20date
with this one being the announce of beta:
https://community.wanikani.com/t/wanikani-pricing-and-beta-info/45
I was searching for stuff written about WaniKani in the past, and assumed this was old (because of the use of the word “ugly”) but then it talks about kanji and vocab totals that are more recent, so this person really does just think the current site is ugly, heh.
A piece of artwork for WaniKani was posted on April 10th, 2012.
On the Tofugu website there is a very brief overview on the founding of Tofugu and WK in the " A Short History of Tofugu" section:
It says: “[…] In 2011, Viet Hoang joined as our first developer and helped co-found WaniKani, our application for learning kanji and vocabulary. […]”
Thanks! This doesn’t detail every tiny detail, but it’s enough for me here.
May I ask if it’s still useful after 6 years?
For me? Absolutely… I’ve restarted several times 
If I manage to stay consistent with it this time around, I expect it will be useful for at least a couple years, and then I’ll likely revisit to refresh on occasion. I wouldn’t be surprised if they add further functionality down the road that will increase its very-long-term usefulness as well.
I think this website has the most detailed account to wanikani history imo.
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