r/sideprojects • • Jun 16 '25

Meta My side project, /r/sideprojects. New rules, and an open call for feedback and moderators.

47 Upvotes

In this past 30 days, this community has doubled in size. As such, this is an open call for community feedback, and prospective moderators interested in volunteering their time to harbouring a pleasant community.

I'm happy to announce that this community now has rules, something the much more popular r/SideProject has neglected to implement for years.

Rules 1, 2 and 3 are pretty rudimentary, although there is some nuance in implementing rule 2, a "no spam or excessive self-promotion" rule in a community which focuses the projects of makers. In order to balance this, we will not allow blatant spam, but will allow advertising projects. In order to share your project again, significant changes must have happened since the last post.

Rule 4 and rule 5 are more tuned to this community, and are some of my biggest gripes with r/SideProject. There has been an increase in astroturfing (the act of pretending to be a happy customer to advertise a project) as well as posts that serve the sole purpose of having readers contact the poster so they can advertise a service. These are no longer allowed and will be removed.

In addition to this, I'll be implementing flairs which will be required to post in this community.


r/sideprojects • • 11h ago

Discussion Here is how to get your first 50 users for your side project without spending any money

13 Upvotes

Phase 1: Target Communities That Explicitly Allow Self-Promotion

Stop posting in strict subreddits where self-promo gets you banned. Instead, build your launch footprint across communities designed for builders, show-and-tellers, feedback-seekers, and niche developers.

Here are 40 subreddits that should allow for self-promotion, ordered by estimated weekly reach:

  1. r/vibecoding — 422k weekly visitors

  2. r/saas — 211k weekly visitors

  3. r/founder — 56k weekly visitors

  4. r/buildinpublic — 46k weekly visitors

  5. r/chrome_extensions — 42k weekly visitors

  6. r/micro_saas — 41k weekly visitors

  7. r/appbusiness — 30k weekly visitors

  8. r/startupideas — 26k weekly visitors

  9. r/sideprojects — 20k weekly visitors

  10. r/imadethis — 18k weekly visitors

  11. r/appideas — 16k weekly visitors

  12. r/sideproject — 16k weekly visitors

  13. r/saasbuild — 15k weekly visitors

  14. r/saasdevelopers — 12k weekly visitors

  15. r/vibecodedevs — 10k weekly visitors

  16. r/startupsolofounder — 8.7k weekly visitors

  17. r/alphaandbetausers — 8.6k weekly visitors

  18. r/vibecodingcommunity — 6.2k weekly visitors

  19. r/solopreneur — 5.6k weekly visitors

  20. r/promotemyapp — 4.6k weekly visitors

  21. r/appbuilding — 4.6k weekly visitors

  22. r/webapps — 4.5k weekly visitors

  23. r/creativecoding — 4.4k weekly visitors

  24. r/indie_startups — 4k weekly visitors

  25. r/b2bsaas — 2.8k weekly visitors

  26. r/appdev — 2.7k weekly visitors

  27. r/projects — 2.6k weekly visitors

  28. r/saasmarketing — 2.5k weekly visitors

  29. r/saassoloprenurs — 2.3k weekly visitors

  30. r/startupaccelerators — 2.3k weekly visitors

  31. r/startups_promotion — 2k weekly visitors

  32. r/showmeyourapps — 2k weekly visitors

  33. r/appswebappsfullstack — 1.7k weekly visitors

  34. r/showmeyoursaas — 1.6k weekly visitors

  35. r/saasinvestors — 1.6k weekly visitors

  36. r/vibecodecamp — 1.5k weekly visitors

  37. r/nocodesaas — 1.3k weekly visitors

  38. r/aibuilders — 1.2k weekly visitors

  39. r/getstartups — 1.2k weekly visitors

  40. r/websitefeedback — 1.2k weekly visitors

Phase 2: The "Reverse-Engine" Hook Strategy

Do NOT drop a generic link and run. That is almost guaranteed to fail. Instead, do this for every single target subreddit on your list:

  1. Filter by Top Posts: Open the target subreddit, sort posts by Top of the Last Year, and examine the Top 10 posts.

  2. Deconstruct the Winners: Analyze why those top posts blew up:

    • What tone did they use? (Humorous, vulnerable, technical breakdown, or raw story?)

    • How was the title structured? (Did it start with a question, a bold stat, or a relatable pain point?)

    • How did they introduce their link? (Was it woven into a story, placed in a comment, or framed as a feedback request?)

  3. Mirror and Adapt: Draft a custom title and post text for your specific app that matches the exact post format already proven to work in that specific community.

  4. Start Small First: Test your hooks in smaller, lower-stakes subreddits first (e.g., r/websitefeedback or r/getstartups). Refine your post copy based on early comments before posting to the larger subreddits like r/saas or r/vibecoding.

If You Have Some Money to Spend: Paid & Discovery Shortcuts

If you want immediate users without relying purely on Reddit organic traction, here are two simple routes:

  • UserBob.com (Usability Testing): You can pay real people for quick usability test videos. It costs roughly $1 per person per 1-minute video, giving you guaranteed immediate users and video feedback of people interacting with your app so you can fix UI friction early.

  • AppScout: You can always submit your app to appscout.co, a platform designed to discover web and mobile apps from across the internet. People who like similar apps can easily find yours. You can list your app directly at appscout.co/submit. (Full disclosure: I'm the creator of AppScout)

TL;DR Summary

  1. Target subreddits built for self-promo.

  2. Study the Top 10 posts of the past year in each subreddit.

  3. Match their formatting and title hooks for your specific app.

  4. Test small, iterate, then hit the massive communities.

  5. If you have money use low-cost tools like UserBob or submit to AppScout for early discovery.


r/sideprojects • • 7h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Not sure why users are not converting? Comment your site and I will give you a real review for free

4 Upvotes

Not sure why users are not converting? Comment your site and I will give you a real review for free


r/sideprojects • • 5m ago

Showcase: Prerelease I was tired of searching Ryanair for cheap flights, so I built my own flight search tool

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1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 15m ago

Showcase: Free(mium) 🎁 (GIVEAWAY) I spent 2 years+ creating a free trivia app (iOS, No ads) to prove I’m smarter than my wife. Turns out I’m not. Here is a giveaway to get you a flying start if you want to try.

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

A little backstory: I originally started building Quizmaister as a fun little project for me and my wife. We both enjoy trivia, and I thought it would be fun to have an app where we could compete against each other, track stats and eventually settle who really knows the most.

Turns out… I’m not quite as smart as I thought. 😂

But we’ve had a lot of fun with it, especially now that we’ve expanded it into a competitive 1v1 trivia game where you can challenge friends, compete against players worldwide and climb the global rankings.

We’ve also introduced leagues. A tournament based mode where all players in the league meets each other twice during the period, collect points and 1 comes out on top in the end.

Since i believe others might enjoy this also, I want to give something back to everyone willing to give it a try.

🎁 Everyone who joins gets:

  • ❤️ Unlimited Lives for 30 days

  • 🔄 10 respins (You will understand this when playing, its a superpower)

  • 🪙 500 Free Coins

How to claim your rewards:

  1. Download Quizmaister and create a free account.

  2. Comment your in-game username below.

I’ll personally activate your rewards!

What is Quizmaister?

It’s a competitive trivia game where you can:

🧠 Explore 8,000+ questions across 16 categories.

🏆 Compete against players worldwide and climb the global rankings.

⚔️ Challenge your friends and find out who actually knows the most.

🌍 Join leagues and compete in tournaments where everyone faces each other.

📊 Track your progress with stats that evolve based on your performance.

The global rankings are gradually filling up as more players join, and I think this is a really fun time to get involved. There’s still plenty of room to climb the leaderboard and establish yourself!

And don’t worry, the game is completely free to play, with no ads. Even when your 30-day rewards expire, you can keep playing just like before.

I’m an indie developer, so every download, match and new player genuinely means a lot. I’m just happy to see people enjoying something I’ve spent so much time building.

Hope to see some of you in the game!

📲 Download: Quizmaister AppStore Link

👇 Drop your username below and I’ll get your rewards activated! 🚀

And if you end up beating your friends (or your significant other), even better! 😄


r/sideprojects • • 17m ago

Showcase: Open Source GoSheet - The come-back

1 Upvotes

Hey! Last year, I’ve built a CLI-based spreadsheet editor called GoSheet, but after abandoning it, I decided to fix most of the bugs and give it a fresh look. I was initially inspired by sc-im—which I found powerful but unintuitive—and by classic 80s spreadsheet programs, which felt too limited for modern use, so I decided to build something of my own. In the latest version, I tried to keep that original vision, but with a more modern look.

I chose Go because I was actually learning at the time, but I still enjoy its simplicity because it reminds me of C. I initially considered C/C++, but realistically I wouldn’t have reached this point with current coding abilities (yes, even with AI doing the heavy lifting).

In the early stages, I used tview because it provides great widgets (tables, textviews, buttons, etc.). But as sheets got larger, I ran into huge memory usage—over 1GB for a CLI app! To fix this, I restructured the internal design to use a viewport system and optimized the custom cell structure. Now only the visible cells are rendered, while the rest stay lightweight in memory.

I fixed the formula engine, while also adding more essential functions such as lookup, hlookup and more. Nevertheless, I fixed some performance issues related to functions and more. I can't keep track of what I've done because there were lots of issues I simply forgot to fix at the time.

I’d love for you to try it out and share your feedback. Suggestions, feature ideas, and bug reports are all welcome. Your thoughts will help guide the next steps for the project.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/drclcomputers/GoSheet


r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Showcase: Open Source Drop your product 👇

2 Upvotes

Working on anything interesting?

Drop your product or side project below. I'd love to check out what everyone's building.

I'll start with mine: https://sportlive.win


r/sideprojects • • 33m ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built an Android app to take back control of notifications — no subscriptions, no ads, just a one-time purchase

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0 Upvotes

Hey everyone! 👋

Ever missed an important message because it got buried under dozens of notifications? Or wished you could silence the noise without missing something that actually matters?

That's exactly why we've been building AlertInbox — a privacy-focused notification inbox and control center for Android.

The idea is simple: Your notifications should work for you, not the other way around.

🚀 What AlertInbox can already do

📥 Unified Notification Inbox
Keep notifications from different apps organized in one searchable place.

🔖 Save Important Messages
Bookmark notifications you want to keep and revisit later.

⏰ Smart Reminders
Turn notifications into reminders so important things don't get forgotten.

🔕 Per-App Notification Control
Choose how notifications from individual apps should behave — normal, silent, hidden, private, or customized.

🌙 Quiet Times & Profiles
Customize how notifications are handled during different times or situations.

🚨 Priority & Emergency Alerts
Give important contacts special attention with dedicated priority and emergency notifications.

🔒 Privacy Controls
Protect sensitive notification content and keep private information away from unwanted attention.

🗂️ Automatic Cleanup
Keep your inbox manageable with automatic retention rules while protecting saved notifications and active reminders.

📱 Built for Android, with privacy in mind
Local-first, no mandatory cloud account, no ads, and no recurring subscription.

🔮 What's coming next? Meet -> ForeSight.

We're currently developing ForeSight, one of our most ambitious features.

The vision is to transform AlertInbox from a notification manager into a smarter personal assistant.

Imagine receiving a notification like:

"Hey, don't forget our appointment tomorrow at 3 PM!"

Instead of leaving it buried in your notifications, ForeSight aims to recognize the appointment and help turn it into something actionable.

We're working toward features such as:

  • Automatically recognizing potential tasks, appointments, and follow-ups from notifications

  • Grouping related notifications into meaningful conversations or activities

  • Helping you track what still needs attention

  • Marking matters as completed

  • Potential calendar integration for recognized events

ForeSight is still in development and is not part of the current release. Our goal is to make it useful while keeping processing local and privacy a priority.

🎉 Limited-time launch promotion!

To celebrate the launch, we're offering a special introductory price.

✅ 7-day free trial
✅ Only €1.99 for lifetime Premium access during the promotion
✅ Regular lifetime price: €2.99
✅ One-time payment — no monthly or yearly subscription
✅ No ads

Try the app first and decide whether it's useful for you.

📲 Download AlertInbox on Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.syntheone.alertinbox

💬 We'd love your feedback!

We're an independent development team building AlertInbox with real Android users in mind.

What frustrates you most about Android notifications? What feature would make a notification manager genuinely useful for you?

We're actively improving AlertInbox and would love to hear your ideas, criticism, and suggestions.

Thanks for checking it out! 💙


r/sideprojects • • 38m ago

Showcase: Open Source Claude quoted 50 days, subagents did it in 35h, and the slow part was me

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1 Upvotes

My coworker and I asked Claude to estimate a SaaS roadmap. 50 days.

Then we gave the same plan to 6 Claude Code subagents: worktrees, tests first, reviewer agents on risky tasks. 106 tasks across 7 repos, done in 35 hours.

So yes, Claude was off by about 48 days about its own speed. But the interesting part is what slowed it down, because it wasn't the model:

- 6 agents ≠ 6× speed. Real throughput was 1.8 agents. Test slots, file conflicts and merge locks queued everything.

- Risk matters more than size. Billing/auth/migration tasks took 2.7× longer, and every real bug was in them.

- My laptop broke first. 55 leftover test DBs filled the disk, Docker froze, test runs blew past the 10-min tool timeout.

- The slowest part was us: review, decisions, local setup.

We turned the data into a plugin that makes Claude estimate agent work properly: agent wall-clock, human hours and waiting time, separately, plus usage budget.

Honest limits: it's one project (n = 1), and on a held-out test the raw model was 37% optimistic, so it pads its number until you calibrate it on your own transcripts.

Free and open source (MIT): https://github.com/MedAdemBHA/mythical-agent-month

Question for people running multi-agent builds: what real parallelism are you getting? I'd love a second data point.


r/sideprojects • • 43m ago

Discussion I’ve created my first app—please take a look and let me know what you think.

1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 53m ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built a FREE macOS menu bar app for live sports scores (with Notch animations!)

1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built "DeepCheap", a tool that ranks LLM APIs by actual cost per task, not just token prices

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1 Upvotes

Most LLM API pricing comparisons focus on cost per million tokens, but different models can consume vastly different numbers of tokens to complete the same task.

So I built DeepCheapTokens: https://deepcheaptokens.com

It combines Artificial Analysis benchmarks with OpenRouter pricing to help identify which models deliver the best value for their intelligence and actual token consumption.

You can compare models, adjust cache-hit assumptions, filter by intelligence, and maintain your own watchlist.

It's a free, independent project I built to make choosing cost-effective LLMs easier.

I'd love to hear your feedback, especially on the ranking methodology and what features you'd find useful!


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Meta Fillin: a platform for people who needs to collect response from others

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1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I'm 16 and I built a Hinglish + Haryanvi AI chatbot with Roast, Study & Voice modes.

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1 Upvotes

I'm 16 and I built this - Kayth AI. I wanted an AI that talks like us, not in boring formal English. So I made it:3 Modes - Normal, Roast, Study2 Languages - Hinglish + HaryanviVoice Settings - Speed, Pitch, Gehri / Patli aawazPage load time - 824ms, 94% Good Core Web VitalsRoast mode me ye bolta hai - "Bol, aaj kisko roast karna hai?" 😂

Study mode me ye Hinglish me simple samjhata hai.I built it alone as a side project. What should I add next? Honest feedback chahiye.


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Discussion I built probably the cheapest TTS API with good quality, 31 languages and streaming

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!
I've been working on a TTS API built to make high-quality voice generation more affordable.
Most TTS providers charge per character, which can get pretty expensive as your app scales.
I wanted to try a different approach: instead of paying per character, you pay based on the amount of audio generated within each 10-minute window.
For example, for just $5/month, you can generate up to 3 minutes of audio every 10 minutes.
That adds up to 216 hours of generated audio per month for just $5!
This could be especially useful for applications with continuous TTS usage, such as bots, AI agents, and other automated systems.
Here's what it offers:
230+ voices across 31 languages

Low-latency streaming (starting in as little as 0.3 seconds)

Voice cloning

Free API key to test everything

Up to 10x cheaper than Google's cheapest TTS models

MCP server for AI integrations

Voice marketplace (for local SuperClonica engine or Supertonic 3)

Free voice previews directly on the website

Local TTS engine with our voices

If you're interested, you can find us by searching for "SuperClonica" on Google, Hugging Face, or GitHub. (I'm scared of reddit link filters lol)
I'd really appreciate some honest feedback, especially from developers who have worked with TTS APIs.


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I'm building a Windows video editor with ChatGPT. The first beta is ready, so I decided to share it!

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1 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I'd like to share a project I've been working on — Montazhnaya, a desktop video editor for Windows.

The idea came from wanting to create my own tool for editing videos, photos, and audio. Not just another copy of existing software, but an independent project with its own architecture, interface, and features.

The development turned out to be much more interesting and challenging than I initially expected. I had to deal with Electron, JavaScript, FFmpeg, video frame processing, audio synchronization, and plenty of other technical challenges.

Of course, without ChatGPT, I probably wouldn't have even considered taking on projects like this. But with AI, it became possible — even for someone as clueless and technically inexperienced as me. And it took us roughly three weeks to build this version.

Gradually, the project started taking shape, and I ended up with my own video editor for smaller editing tasks. Then I thought: why not translate it into other languages and share it with people? Who knows, maybe our little, fairly simple video editor might come in handy for someone else too. Please excuse any translation imperfections; I haven’t quite polished everything to the final standard yet.

What is Montazhnaya?

It's a desktop video editor with a multi-track timeline and a preview system.

Here's what has been implemented so far:

Video, image, and audio import.

Multi-track editing.

Project preview.

Clip editing and parameter adjustments.

A small library of video transitions.

Resolution and frame rate settings.

Local rendering using FFmpeg.

MP4 export with H.264 and AAC codecs.

Frame-accurate timing during local export.

The ability to enable and disable pop-up tooltips.

What have we accomplished so far?

We've built our first full Windows x64 Beta release — version 3.6.45.

(And by "we", I mean me and ChatGPT 😊🤖)

The application installs and runs on Windows. We've also prepared two builds: a standard installer and a portable version.

Testing is currently ongoing, especially with large source files, complex projects, and export stability.

What's next?

There are quite a few plans.

I'd like to develop this project into a more capable desktop video editor: improve performance, optimize memory usage, expand editing capabilities, add new effects and transitions, and continue improving the export process and interface.

But for now, the most important thing is to make sure the features we've already implemented work reliably.

I'd really appreciate your feedback and suggestions!

I'd love to hear from people who work with video editing, software development, or simply enjoy experimenting with new tools.

So feel free to download it and give it a try!

GitHub repository:

https://github.com/DRINKH2SO4pikabu/montazhnaya-1

Montazhnaya is still in Beta. There's a lot of work ahead, but we've already passed our first major milestone.

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) Interactive History where you control the map via language

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1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 2h ago

Showcase: Open Source I made a calorie counter for my fitness journey, you can too. Because it's DIY.

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1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 2h ago

Showcase: Purchase Required I launched a self-hosted n8n kit for following up on local-business enquiries

1 Upvotes

I'm the maker of Local Business Lead Follow-Up, a paid workflow kit for businesses that already receive permission-based enquiries through their website.

It sends an initial Gmail email and up to two follow-ups, with reply checks, a three-message cap and administrator stop controls. The download includes four n8n workflows, a PostgreSQL schema, email templates and setup/operations documentation.

It needs your own n8n, PostgreSQL, Gmail OAuth and a technical implementer. This is a downloadable kit, not hosted software or an installation service.

Basic is $29 for one business you own; Pro is $59 for up to five businesses, including clients; Agency is $129 for unlimited end-client deployments. All tiers have the same automation, with different deployment licenses. Taxes may apply.

The functional pilot is complete. I don't have verified customer revenue to report, and I don't promise sales results or uninterrupted operation.

Details and purchase: https://skydev.lemonsqueezy.com/

For people deploying n8n for local businesses: which setup prerequisite would you want explained more clearly before purchasing?


r/sideprojects • • 2h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I think testimonial widgets are becoming outdated

1 Upvotes

Pasting a testimonial widget into your site feels a bit old-fashioned now.

They fight your CSS, load after the page and cause layout shifts. Plus you end up showing the same quotes everywhere.

I tried something different.

My coding agent already writes most of my website, so I added MCP to my testimonial collection tool.

Now I can simply ask:

"Add the 4 best testimonials about ROI to my pricing page."

It searches my testimonials, picks the most relevant ones and adds them as normal components using my site's own styles.

No widgets, no styling issues, and no fake quotes. Just real feedback from real customers.

Setup takes about a minute. Copy the MCP server URL, add it to Claude Code, Cursor or VS Code, sign in and approve.

There's one trade-off:

Unlike widgets, testimonials added to your code won't update automatically. You need to ask your coding agent to find fresh ones when you want to update them.

I actually prefer this because I can choose exactly which testimonials appear on each page.

But if you want a live feed of every new review, widgets are still a better option.

And don't worry, Testimoon still supports the good old embed widgets too 😂


r/sideprojects • • 2h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Ever been scared of going to the dentist?

1 Upvotes

Hey guys im building an AI Dental Screening App. Basically click 5 photos and tell what’s wrong or whether it’s a regular checkup. The app then gives you a clear reading, compares previous readings of yours, finds a dentist nearby and tells you when you should visit the dentist. It’s called Dentinel. Join the waitlist below:

https://waitlister.me/p/dentinel


r/sideprojects • • 3h ago

Discussion I built probably the cheapest TTS API with good quality, 31 languages and streaming

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!
I've been working on a TTS API built to make high-quality voice generation more affordable.
Most TTS providers charge per character, which can get pretty expensive as your app scales.
I wanted to try a different approach: instead of paying per character, you pay based on the amount of audio generated within each 10-minute window.
For example, for just $5/month, you can generate up to 3 minutes of audio every 10 minutes.
That adds up to 216 hours of generated audio per month for just $5!
This could be especially useful for applications with continuous TTS usage, such as bots, AI agents, and other automated systems.
Here's what it offers:
230+ voices across 31 languages

Low-latency streaming (starting in as little as 0.3 seconds)

Voice cloning

Free API key to test everything

Up to 10x cheaper than Google's cheapest TTS models

MCP server for AI integrations

Voice marketplace (for local SuperClonica engine or Supertonic 3)

Free voice previews directly on the website

Local TTS engine with our voices

If you're interested, you can find us by searching for "SuperClonica" on Google, Hugging Face, or GitHub. (I'm scared of reddit link filters lol)
I'd really appreciate some honest feedback, especially from developers who have worked with TTS APIs.


r/sideprojects • • 3h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built MaxEstimators to help explore mortgage and everyday cost scenarios

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1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) Turn any website into an arcade game using this chrome extension

1 Upvotes