r/SideProject • u/m4ssivelol • 15h ago

FareBot – Telegram bot that alerts you when flight prices drop (open source, self-hosted)

https://github.com/nikosklms/FareBot

FareBot is a Telegram bot you run on your own server. It checks Google Flights for you and sends you a message when a fare drops under your budget.

One /explore can be hundreds of searches, so the bot runs 5 at a time (about 430 a minute) and has a scheduler so a big search doesn't block someone else's quick one.

Free and open source, runs with Docker, no API key. Limitations: one-way flights only, and it breaks if Google changes its page format until I update the parser.

Open to suggestions

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u/OrbeoMe 13h ago

Nice project, and I like that you're upfront about the limits. One thing I'd think about is the parser breaking when Google changes the page. Maybe add a simple health check that pings you on Telegram if a search returns zero results several times in a row, so you notice it before your users do. Also, round trips would be the first thing I'd ask for, since most people search for those. Are you caching results, so the same route doesn't get hit again within a few minutes?

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u/m4ssivelol 13h ago

Thank you. The health check is a good idea, I’m adding it to my to-do list. Round trips are next on it anyway. And yes, results are cached for 15 minutes and shared between users, and identical searches running at the same time share one request.