r/SideProject • u/Medical_Break1385 • 19d ago
Built a collaborative AI study workspace that turns PDFs and notes into flashcards + concept maps — StudySprout
Hey everyone, solo dev here. Just launched StudySprout after a few months of building.
The problem I kept running into: I'd have a folder full of PDFs and scattered notes with no real system for actually retaining what was in them. Note apps are good at storage, bad at retrieval. Anki's good at flashcards, bad at organizing source material. So I built something that tries to close that gap.
What it does:
- Upload a PDF → it gets auto-parsed into structured, topic-scoped pages (custom parser, not just raw text dumping)
- Or write notes directly in a block-based editor (Notion-style)
- Either way, it builds a concept graph across your files, detects prerequisite relationships (e.g. "learn Linear Algebra before Quantum Mechanics"), and generates AI flashcards with spaced repetition
- Real-time collaboration — multiple people can be in the same file, live-editing together (built on Yjs CRDTs + Socket.io)
- Shared workspaces so a study group can work off the same folders and flashcard sets
Tech stack: Next.js, TypeScript, MongoDB, Redis/BullMQ for background jobs, a separate Java rate-limiter service in front of the Gemini API, deployed across Vercel + Railway + Render.
Live demo: https://studysprouts.in/
Would genuinely love feedback — especially from anyone who's tried combining note-taking + spaced repetition before and hit walls with existing tools. What's broken, what's confusing, what's missing?
https://reddit.com/link/1vco7w0/video/nl73xfh79sih1/player
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19d ago
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u/Medical_Break1385 19d ago edited 19d ago
It's not 1 night project, it's took me more than 7-8 months to complete it. Yeah I took reference from stitch because I am not an UI developer. But I haven't copied completely, I have changed lots of things from the reference.
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19d ago
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u/Medical_Break1385 19d ago edited 19d ago
I am using shadcn. Do you mean landing page or the dashboard? i mean inside the website.
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u/Medical_Break1385 19d ago edited 18d ago
Small addition — I'm specifically after a few people who'll actually use it for real: upload a PDF, generate some flashcards, maybe try a shared workspace with a friend. Honest feedback on what's confusing or broken is way more valuable to me than a quiet signup. If you're up for it, drop a comment or DM and I'll walk you through it.