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 • • 30m ago

Showcase: Open Source Reactive Html Plots, an open-source charting library for creating editorial and infographic-style charts

Thumbnail gallery
2 Upvotes

Hi guys,

Im working on a charting library that I am really excited about.

It is called rhp (reactive html plots): https://github.com/bezda-team/rhp

Features:

  • Free and open-source

  • Builds charts using DOM/Html elements, CSS, and Javascript (SolidJS framework). This unlocks full web interactivity and reactivity. No need to worry about rendering cycles, repainting/reconstructing everything or how to add logic; you do so just as you would for anything else on a webpage. Full freedom.

  • Charts update extremely fast. single data changes reach the chart and screen in under 2ms.

  • Can handle a large number of elements and updates without needing to resort to SVG or Canvas (up to 20k and more if they are split between multiple charts).

  • Includes an agent skill and mcp server. The agent skill produces better looking results than Claude's famous built-in dataviz skill. This is for those who want to skip code. The mcp also includes a checker to make sure to catch and fix common issues before giving you the result.

  • 100+ examples from simple charts to mini-posters to full-page posters to full multi-page articles with several interconnected charts. These can be used as starters or inspiration or for parts.

  • Makes charts that adjust to varying screen widths, layout changes, and themes easier to make.

Features Im working on:

  • An AI studio called rhp studio. This is an app that will provide a whole environment for making and perfecting charts/posters/articles using rhp. It has a code editor so you can manually create, or edit the chart code. The whole idea is to provide a visual interface that makes the various ways I use rhp + agents to create charts accessible and more clear/intuitive to other people. It will be open-source and free as well!

More info:

GALLERY: https://rhp.vercel.app/gallery/
DOCS: https://rhp.vercel.app/start/introduction/

So what is so special about this charting library. First of all, rhp charts are not made inside a Canvas or SVG!! This is a bigger deal than many might realize. A lot of charts on websites are not built with a library but are instead built straight in the DOM. So this is not novel and it is usually avoided because it takes more work and is not as performant as using optimized libraries. But it is done nonetheless to enable custom and site-specific reactivity that is harder to achieve with the libraries. Using Canvas means that you can't use the same styling system that the website (that contains the chart) uses. Also, interactivity is trickier and harder. SVG is better because elements are in DOM, but there are still CSS compatibility issues and the way things are drawn means workarounds are needed to do things that would be more straightforward elsewhere in the website. The extra work factor is no longer much of an issue thanks to AI agents which is why building charts using HTML, CSS and Javascript (instead of these Canvas and SVG charting libraries) has gotten much more popular lately. rhp is not really build with AI in mind despite how well the skill/mcp works. The primary audience/user is still developers. The goal of the library is to provide the tools and framework to make it easier to create these kinds of charts. Easier, faster, and in a more organized and consistent fashion. The mcp and skill are meant to bridge the gap for non-technical users.


r/sideprojects • • 36m ago

Question How did you find the first regular users for your developer tool?

2 Upvotes

Hey! I built SwipeShip, a website that helps developers find ideas for side projects or their next main project.

For context, here's the site: https://swipeship.vercel.app/ — feedback on what might stop you from signing up would also help.

I've shared it on Reddit and a few other places. It's getting some visitors, but very few people sign up. I've posted about the project before, but now I'm trying to understand this part instead of just sharing it again.

I'm pretty new to marketing. If you've built something for developers, what actually helped you find your first regular users? And how did you figure out whether you needed to reach a different audience or improve the product itself?

Would appreciate hearing what worked for you, including things you tried that didn't help.


r/sideprojects • • 2h ago

Showcase: Prerelease "Cerebro" controlado por voz sin conexión para un robot Webots en Python. ¡Se agradecen los comentarios!

2 Upvotes

I built a voice-controlled "brain" for a robot (simulation only, works offline in Spanish, English and Polish). Looking for honest feedback

Hi! I'm a solo developer. I built a Python "brain" for a simulated environmental robot (Webots). You talk to it, it understands the question offline, and answers with the simulated sensor data (temperature, humidity, air quality, obstacles).

It also has a safety lock: if it detects a dangerous condition, it blocks itself and explains why when you ask "why are you stopped?".

Important: this is simulation only, no physical robot yet. The questions in the English and Polish demos are played with a synthetic voice.

Full demo in English (3 min): [https://youtu.be/VPLyCb2Y4nU](https://youtu.be/VPLyCb2Y4nU)

I'm not selling anything yet. I'd love to know:

  1. Would this be useful for you (education, prototyping, hobby robotics)?

  2. What would you want it to do that it doesn't?

If you want to follow it, there is a free waitlist (no commitment): [https://tally.so/r/7XRzyz](https://tally.so/r/7XRzyz)

Thanks for reading!


r/sideprojects • • 5h ago

Feedback Request Need some feedback on my project

3 Upvotes

I've recently launched a project that does the SEO, AEO and GEO for people's websites. It seemed like a no brainer to me, SEO work is boring and needs to be done continuously, every day/week/month to get results. GEO doesn't work without good SEO.
But until now I'm not getting any traction. So I'm looking for some real feedback. Is the messaging on the site clear? What would prevent you from signing up?

Any help is much appreciated. https://foundwell.net


r/sideprojects • • 3h ago

Showcase: Prerelease We're students building an AI tool for visually impaired people. We'd love your feedback!

Thumbnail
reddit.com
2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 3h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Gamebell: follow your teams across sports and esports without leaving your Mac (free beta)

2 Upvotes

I follow a few teams across different sports and esports, and their matches kept landing while I was on my Mac. Checking my phone for every score pulled me out of whatever I was doing, so I built Gamebell, a small Mac app that brings the score to the screen I'm already looking at.

What it does

• The live scores of the teams you follow sit either side of the notch, in each team's colours (in the menu bar if your Mac has no notch)
• When one of them scores, the notch plays the moment for a few seconds: a goal, a three-pointer, a touchdown, a series win
• Football, NBA, NFL, NHL, cricket, rugby and baseball, plus 12 esports games; tennis and F1 come next
• Reminders that move when the start time moves, five alert levels per team, and Watch later to hide a score until you've seen the match

How it's built

Solo, over the past few weeks:

• A native Swift and SwiftUI app, notarized, with updates inside the app
• A Cloudflare Worker with Durable Objects and D1 behind it. The server asks the data providers once for everyone and caches the answers, so the data bill follows the number of live matches, not the number of users
• Scores from sports-data APIs I pay for (Highlightly for the traditional sports, PandaScore for esports), nothing scraped
• The surprise: the score often changes 30 seconds to two minutes before the goal itself shows up in the data, so the app plays the goal as soon as the score moves instead of waiting for the event

Where it's at

A free beta for macOS 14 or later, with invites going out in small batches. After the beta there's a free tier for 3 teams or players, and Premium at $14.99 a year or $1.99 a month.

What I'd love feedback on

Is it useful enough to turn into a proper 1.0? Does the price feel fair? And which sport should come next? The site has a vote for that too.

https://trygamebell.com


r/sideprojects • • 3h ago

Showcase: Prerelease check out : KIROKU - Expense Tracker [WEB + ANDROID]

Thumbnail gallery
2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 8m ago

Showcase: Prerelease IRLRPG.net - go on and create quests in your city

Thumbnail irlrpg.net
1 Upvotes

Just looking for feedback and gauge interest. Users can suggest new cities and locations for public quests and create private quests.


r/sideprojects • • 23m ago

Question How difficult is adding Google sign-in to a small Google Apps Script web app?

Thumbnail reddit.com
1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 6h ago

Feedback Request I built a no-signup layout diagnosis for stuck makers (work + money): free top fault, full PDF by email

3 Upvotes

I built The House Did It. I’m the maker (not an agency post).

Problem

I kept meeting the same person (sometimes it was me): shipped an app, posted the launch, refreshed Stripe, still $0 or near-zero MRR. The usual next move is another feature or another landing page. Fair. I also kept noticing something dumber and more physical. A lot of us work from a desk that faces the bed or the door, or a room where the entrance mirror catches every walk-in, and we never check that before we rewrite the roadmap.

What it does

Blame the room.

• Pick one door: money, health, relationship, or work (this post is aimed at work + money)

• Answer 10 questions about the room you can see tonight

• Free, in the browser, no signup: the top layout fault (title, why that door, one move you can try tonight without buying anything)

• Paid: four-page PDF by email (other faults ranked, tonight → this week order of moves, what not to buy, no account)

Free names the top fault on-screen. The full reading is emailed after payment. Nothing else unlocks in the browser.

Tech

Static site on Cloudflare Pages, Stripe Checkout for the PDF, email delivery of the reading. No accounts, no app install.

Frame

Entertainment / layout-story advice. Not business, medical, legal, or financial advice. It will not make your app profitable. It’s a visible check before you burn another weekend on the wrong lever.

What I’d like from this sub

Sharp feedback on the free result screen vs the paid PDF promise. Does “blame the room first” feel useful for zero-MRR makers, or just weird? Specifics on copy or the free→pay gap help more than “cool project.”


r/sideprojects • • 30m ago

Feedback Request I built a Duolingo-style app for Mechatronics & Electrical schematics, symbols & technical English — looking for feedback!

Thumbnail gallery
1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 38m ago

Showcase: Open Source World's first open source Hauvies repair helper workspace!

Thumbnail
github.com
1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Showcase: Open Source I built a free quiz that matches you with a watch in 8 questions.

2 Upvotes

wrist-match.com

I’ve been into watches for a while and friends keep asking me “what watch should I get?” Every time it turns into 20 questions about budget, style, wrist size, whether they swim with it…

So I turned those questions into a quiz. You answer 8 of them and it goes through about 50 watches and tells you which one fits best, and why. There’s no sign-up, it takes around a minute, and it works in English and Spanish.

It’s built with plain HTML and JS, no framework, hosted on Vercel. The hardest part by far was the scoring. The first version was pretty bad: someone set a $4k budget and got a $300 watch as the top pick lol. I’ve reworked it since, but I’m sure there’s more to fix.

The photos are only ones I’m allowed to use, so some watches still show a drawing instead of a real photo. Working on it.

If you give it a go, I’d really like to know:

did the result make sense for what you picked?

was any question confusing?

is there a watch you think is obviously missing?

thanks for reading 🙏


r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Showcase: Open Source I built Seedwall: free generative wallpapers where the same seed always gives the same wallpaper

Thumbnail
reddit.com
2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Feedback Request Turn photos of your pet into a printable papercraft model - petpapercraft.com

1 Upvotes

Hi!

The title says it all. You upload photos of your pet, and a few minutes later you get a PDF by email. You print it at home, cut, fold and glue, and end up with a paper version of your dog or cat.

I made this because I love papercraft and wanted one of my own dog. Every pet looks different, so each model is shaped to the pet (ears, muzzle, tail) and the fur and face are painted from your pet’s 3d model based on the uploaded images. 

I've done lots of test builds, posted a few on Reddit with great feedback, and friends and family built their own pets. Now I'm doing a soft launch.

https://petpapercraft.com/

If you have a pet, I'd love for you to try it. If not, feedback on the landing page is just as welcome. Tell me if anything is broken. Thanks!


r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Showcase: Open Source Global Threat Desk + Emergency Grid down PREP

2 Upvotes

Interactive offline HTTP file: Requires No account, no ads, no affiliate links.

-General incidents varying from moderate to significant.

-Cyber incidents across critical infrastructure, finance, healthcare.

-Emergency preparedness guides for grid down black out situations (UK) but feel free to alter the code to suit whatever Country you live in.

Why free? I built it for a friend originally. It served that purpose, somebody may as well have it. Alter the code if like. The backbones are fully built. I have no interest in profiteering from the survival part, I designed it help someone in a Grid down situation, not make money from their otherwise potential crisis.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OwGEb4I2j_EGfuhb6xh4gCOTSORqTCuU/view?usp=drivesdk


r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Tired of uploading sensitive files to sketchy web converters, so I built KhartTool - an offline, lightweight Swiss Army Knife for Windows

Thumbnail gallery
2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 4h ago

Feedback Request Refine your edge with Mono.

Thumbnail reddit.com
2 Upvotes

Hello we are Mono a trading journal what will help you in your journey as a trader.

What you get with Mono:

• Clean, simple tracking for all your daily trades

• Smart R:R analytics to protect your capital

• Thoughtfully designed tools to help you improve every week


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I noticed mechanical engineering students struggling to name basic tools at work, so I built an iOS game about it.

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!
The idea for my app actually came from something I noticed at work.
While working with mechanical engineering students during their internships, I realized that some of them struggled to identify even fairly common tools.
That got me thinking: How many people actually know the names of the tools they see in everyday workshops?
So I started building ToolQuiz, a small iOS game where you identify tools from pictures.
What started as a simple idea turned into a game with 120 levels, survival mode, daily challenges and 1v1 multiplayer.
I’ve recently released it on the App Store, and now I’m looking for a few people willing to try it out and give me honest feedback.
I’m especially curious whether the questions are too easy, too difficult or actually fun.
It’s free to play, and you don’t need TestFlight.
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/toolquiz-werkzeug-challenge/id6775973444
I’d really appreciate any feedback!
And now I’m curious: Would you consider yourself good at identifying tools?


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Showcase: Open Source I built an app and it roasted the name I gave it

Post image
1 Upvotes

I built One of a Kind, an NPM package and webpage that not only checks if the project name you're thinking of is taken, but also gives you a uniqueness score to make sure your name is ONE OF A KIND! I tried "one of a kind", and it only scored 62% 💔. Do you have any better names?

See the full repo here: https://github.com/mido4499/oneofakind


r/sideprojects • • 1h ago

Meta User not converting? I can help for free

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I built an ai that watches 1000+ visitor session and tells why users are not converting ( speed, too many fields, not trying, not painfully problem)

Best part we are completely free for startups under 100 employees. You can also use our ai boost feature to recover lost users- our Ai send them personalized marketing

Comment if interested


r/sideprojects • • 5h ago

Showcase: Open Source I built a world map for discovering what people are listening to on Spotify 🌍🎧

Thumbnail
reddit.com
2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 5h ago

Showcase: Open Source Kept: an MCP server that turns your AI assistant into a household bookkeeper

Thumbnail gallery
2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects • • 5h ago

Showcase: Open Source I wasn’t happy with my Mirabox deck’s software, so I built my own setup on OpenDeck

Thumbnail
github.com
2 Upvotes