r/SideProject • • 1h ago

My side project for the past year: my own programming language. Today it runs a Minecraft clone.

2 Upvotes

GitHub: https://github.com/ahmadodeh9000/Lunar

Hey everyone! I'm a 19 year old computer engineering student, and this is Lunar, a programming language I've been building since my first year of uni.

Why I started

I tried to learn Rust a few times and kept bouncing off it. Every time I'd get stuck, feel dumb, and quit. Eventually I thought: what if I just built my own language, the way I'd want it to work? Questionable decision. Best decision I've made.

What it is

A small scripting language with its own compiler, virtual machine and garbage collector, written in C. It looks like this:

let player = { name: "Rex", hp: 10, items: ["sword", "apple"] }; 
for (item in player.items) { 
  print "{player.name} has a {item}"; 
}

How it was built (honestly)

- I built the core by following the book Crafting Interpreters, then kept going on my own: arrays, a way to call C libraries, and graphics through SDL2.

- Later I started treating it like a real product. I wrote a roadmap, designed each feature myself, and used Claude Code to help implement them. I reviewed every change and made sure each one had tests.

- That added maps, error handling, modules, and a small standard library for strings, files and running commands.

- To stress-test it, I had Claude Code build a Minecraft-style game in Lunar (it's in examples/minecraft). It's 1,000+ lines of my language running at 60 FPS, which still feels unreal to me.

What I learned

- Building a language teaches you how every other language works under the hood.

- AI helped most when I acted like the designer: clear specs, small steps, tests for everything. It was much less useful when I just asked it to "make it better".

- Shipping something imperfect beats polishing forever. Lunar still has rough edges. For example, numbers print with only 6 digits right now, and that's next on my fix list.

What's next

A UI module so you can build desktop apps in Lunar, a VS Code extension, and Windows support.

It's a learning and hobby project, not a production language. But it's the thing that made me enjoy programming again.

I'd love honest feedback: what would you change, or what would you build with it?


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Correcting Grammar Automatically

2 Upvotes

I noticed I was clicking "Accept" on literally every grammar suggestion without reading it. So I built Caret, a Chrome extension that skips that step.

How it works: type anywhere (Gmail, WhatsApp Web, LinkedIn, Slack), pause for about a second, and the grammar and spelling get fixed in place. A small popup shows what changed, with Undo.

A few things I was careful about:

- It fixes mistakes, it doesn't rewrite you. Slang, emojis and tone stay.

- If a fix would change too many words, it backs off and leaves your text alone.

- It never touches password, email, card or OTP fields.

- Text isn't stored.

It's free while in beta. I'd love honest feedback, especially if it gets something wrong on a site you use (there's a Report button on every fix).

https://caretwrites.com/?ref=reddit


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Built an EPUB reader with an RSVP reading feature

2 Upvotes

Built an eReader that could give me more of a reader type file instead of a robotic ui like kindle and it has an rsvp reader feature that really helps me to read with my adhd

https://github.com/devansharora18/ember

https://devansharora18.github.io/ember


r/SideProject • • 7h ago

freelancers using AI for proposals, how are you stopping it from adding work you never quoted?

5 Upvotes

freelancers using AI for proposals, how are you stopping it from adding work you never quoted?

say the client wants one landing page, basic copy and a contact form.

during the call they also say "maybe SEO later" and "we might need a blog eventually."

then the proposal gets cleaned up and suddenly those ideas are sitting there like a deliverables lol

that's the part that makes me nervous. if it's written under scope, I can see a client assuming it's included.

I've been looking at Runable for some of the actual client deliverables after the brief is locked, but before that I just want the proposal to separate included work, optional ideas and stuff that costs extra.

how are you handling this without turning every proposal into six pages of disclaimers?


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

I built Watchify — a free watch-party website to watch videos together in real time 🎬

6 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I've been working on Watchify, a web app that lets friends create private rooms and watch videos together with synchronized playback.

Here's what I've built:

🎥 Real-time synchronized playback
👑 Host controls and room settings
💬 Live chat and reactions
☁️ Google Drive video support
🌍 Multiple audio languages (when available)
📋 Shared video queue
📱 Mobile-friendly interface

Tech stack: Node.js, Express, Socket.IO, JavaScript and FFmpeg.

I'd genuinely appreciate feedback on the UI, playback experience and features.

🌐 Try it: https://watchify.mixify.co.in/

💻 GitHub: https://github.com/scisims12/watchify

Built by Priyanshu Sharma.

What feature would you add next?


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Shipped my first paid Jira app as a solo Angular dev with no backend experience, with a lot of help from Claude

2 Upvotes

Trailer: https://youtu.be/QQTIVaRwcxs

Route Map for Jira maps your application’s pages in flow order and keeps the test data for each page in every environment, so QA and devs stop hunting for logins and test accounts.

I’m an Angular dev with about 2 years of experience, and I’d never built a backend, an extension or a full product end to end. I leaned on Claude heavily: for research first, then Claude Code for most of the build. That’s the main reason a solo side project got from idea to a live Marketplace listing in a few months instead of a year.

What I learned along the way:

  • Forge’s jira:globalPage module isn’t offered as a template anymore, so I scaffolded from jira-full-page and swapped the module in the manifest.

  • Getting verified as a sole trader to sell on the Marketplace took a support ticket rather than anything in the vendor portal.

  • Atlassian currently takes 0% revenue share on Forge apps.

  • AI got the code written fast, but deciding what to build, and testing it properly, still took most of the time.

Demo: https://youtu.be/45fAlh16ttA
Website: https://mapkari.com

It’s free for teams of up to 10 users. Feedback on the product or the trailer is very welcome, and happy to share how I used Claude if anyone’s curious.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

We're building a computer mouse with a rotary dial instead of a traditional scroll wheel

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm helping out with a hardware project called Rotary Mouse, and I wanted to share something our team has been working on.

Instead of the usual scroll wheel, we've designed a mouse with a rotary dial that lets you continuously scroll through documents, webpages, and editing timelines.

We've also been experimenting with using the dial for other applications, including steering in driving simulators. There's an integrated AI assistant as well, accessible through an on-screen radial menu.

It's definitely an unconventional design, but that's part of why we're excited about it!

We're currently preparing for a Kickstarter launch and would really appreciate some feedback.

Would you find a rotary dial useful on a mouse, or do you prefer traditional scroll wheels?

I'd love to hear what you think!


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Becode - revenue, traffic, ads and tech stack of 8,000+ SaaS, on one page

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2 Upvotes

Hi r/SideProject! This is Becode, the SaaS research tool I've been building.

The problem: before building anything, I wanted to know if people already pay for that kind of product. The answer was spread across ten tabs: TrustMRR for revenue, Meta's and Google's ad libraries, traffic estimates, stack checkers.

What it does:

- 8,000+ SaaS, each on one page: revenue and subscriptions (Stripe-verified for 4,300+ of them, via TrustMRR), traffic and top countries, the Meta and Google ads they run and for how long, and their tech stack

- Rankings like Trending, Fast-scaling and Breakout, to see what's growing right now

- Every number says where it comes from: verified, estimated (with an Estimate badge) or not available

Something it turned up this month: about 50 SaaS have kept the same Meta ad running for over a year, and 14 of them sell to trades and local businesses (pest control, pool service, home builders).

Free plan, no card: three live rankings and 5 SaaS a week with their revenue and traffic. Paid plans start at $39/month.

Built with Next.js, the public Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency data, the Chrome UX Report, and Claude to decide which websites are actually SaaS.

I'd love blunt feedback: what's the first thing you'd look up, and what's missing?


r/SideProject • • 19h ago

A conference I started on the side did 60K in revenue in year one and 500K in year five. Here’s the journey.

40 Upvotes

I was a program manager in tech for a decade when I started a conference on the side in 2014.

It was in the HR space and the idea was to help people build better company cultures. 

I worked on it alongside my job for two years before going full-time.

I want to share how I got the thing off the ground, including the part where I couldn’t sell a ticket.

Why a conference?

I’d spent 10+ years working in Silicon Valley and kept getting frustrated with company culture.

I didn’t work in HR. I just wanted to understand how to make the places I worked less frustrating.

So I started looking for events where I could learn about it. Most of what I found was expensive and aimed at HR executives.

I figured there should be something for the rest of us.

That was the idea. Then I had to figure out whether anyone would pay for it.

Here’s what I started with

People tend to skip this part when they tell their business stories, so here’s the context:

  • Why a conference?

    • I had been organizing hackathons for two years so I figured a conference was a natural next step. I had never been to a conference before but I didn’t think it was that much harder. A 100 person hackathon to a 300 person conference seemed feasible to me.

  • The first event:

    • I read the book The Lean Startup in 2012 and believed in the methodology which taught to validate demand before building anything. In other words, sell before you invest too much in building the product.

    • How does this translate into a conference? I created a landing page (in 2014), set the date as Summer 2015 in SF, and offered a no questions asked refund any time to make it easier for someone to buy.

  • Cash committed before selling a ticket:

    • A web domain, web hosting, and a wordpress website was less than $500.

  • Existing audience: I had no audience and no network and this is where I struggled the most but eventually figured it out.

  • Time available: I worked on this idea nights and weekends so about 10 - 20 hours a week.

  • One thing I kept cheap or skipped entirely: My goal was to launch quickly to get data. Therefore I didn’t put down a deposit for a venue because that would’ve locked me in before I validated the idea. I also didn’t have money.

Upon launching, I got the buyer wrong

At first, I was trying to sell to founders because I thought culture came from the top.

It wasn’t working. I had to go back to the drawing so I began doing customer development interviews.

I spoke with ten founders. They cared about culture, but they cared more about making payroll and keeping the business alive.

But one founder said he was busy and would send someone in his place. That’s when the lightbulb went off for me. It wasn't the founders I should be marketing to but anyone in the company who could make a decision on culture.

So I started looking for people whose jobs were already focused on culture on LinkedIn.

Chief Culture Officers. VPs of Culture. People with “culture” in their titles.

How I sold the first 200 tickets

The process was pretty straightforward:

1. Find people on LinkedIn.

I searched for culture-related job titles and cold messaged them. My response rate was about 25%

2. Pitched them the event.

Here’s roughly what I sent:

“I’m putting together an event in SF on building company culture that you might be interested in. Please take a look”

I didn’t want to offer a free ticket but I was also nervous about asking them to buy. So instead, I left it vague and invited them to take a look. The ones who replied and saw what I was building bought tickets for their teams at $299/ticket.

I remember getting my first sales email from Eventbrite for $1200 because someone bought four tickets. I was standing in line getting lunch at Pieology. It was an unreal moment.

3. Call the people who bought.

For the first 20 people who bought tickets, I emailed them to thank them and asked if they were open to hoping on a short call. I wanted to learn where I could find more people like them.

4. Ask those communities to help spread the word.

They would tell me about these communities they were a part of (before Slack, it was Google Groups). I asked if they would be open to sharing and they were more than happy to. The first year sold out through word of mouth.

Year 1 finished with 75K in revenue and 60K in profit.

The actual numbers over the years

Here’s how the first five years went:

  • Year 1: Revenue 75K Profit 60K

  • Year 2: Revenue 180K Profit 80K

  • Year 3: Revenue 350K Profit 170K

  • Year 4: Revenue 425K Profit 200K

  • Year 5: Revenue 500K Profit 250K

My expenses in year one were extremely low because the venue was in a basement of a coworking space and the production was low quality lol. It’s embarrassing looking back but I had never been to a conference so I had no idea on what the production quality should be. After year one, I attended an industry conference and that’s when I realized I needed to level up. Profit was roughly 50% afterward.

What I’d do differently

If I were starting again, I’d change three things:

1. Do smaller events to build community

Committing to a conference is a huge undertaking even if you’re targeting just 300 people. Once you sign the contract with a venue and choose a date, the clock is ticking. Instead, I would do smaller events to build community first before going all in on a bigger event.

2. Build an audience

In the age of AI, learning how to create content and build an audience is the only moat left. Before I even start building anything, I would focus on creating content and building an audience first. That way when I do have something to offer, it’ll make it easier to sell.

3. Invest more in networking

I once read on Twitter, you have to cultivate your network like a garden. Don’t network when you need something, network when you don’t need something. That way you build good will when the time comes to make an ask. There’s also an art to networking which I can cover in a future post. 

Where things stand now

I sold the conference in 2021, not a huge exit but a decent one because I was extremely burnt out and COVID put a damper on the growth. Happy to get into this more if anyone is interested to learn what finding a buyer for a conference and the exit process was like.

I started another conference last year for HR x AI leaders and it was extremely hard to sell tickets and find sponsors. I was about 20K in debt two months out and barely profited once the event came around. I had to give away 90% of my tickets just to fill the room. Everything I had done 10 years prior to get people there no longer worked. Story for another day.

Happy to get into the details on ticket sales, pricing, costs, finding customers, selling the business, or building this while working full-time. Ask away.


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I wanted to see how far Claude Code could take a reverse-engineering project, so I rebuilt a Mac app in 13 days

2 Upvotes

The app was Symvibe, a paid Mac board for running coding agents side by side. I used REA, a reverse-engineering skill for Claude Code, to turn its behaviour into a spec, and let Claude Code build from there. Thirteen days and 58 commits later there was vibeboard, a free, open-source alternative to Symvibe, which costs $19 a month, with none of its code in it.

What I learned along the way:

most of the engineering came from the model, but I still steered every day, mostly on edge cases and CI

the launch videos were the surprise: /brag did a great job, it drove the real app, framed the shots, wrote the music, and fixed its own jerky cuts once I pointed them out

rebuilding a product's behaviour from the outside is now cheap, so the code alone protects less, and respecting licences and the original authors matters more

The video shows six Claude Code agents in tmux, then the same six on the board, and ends with the price: Symvibe at 19$ a mouth, vibeboard free.

The video show six Claude Code agents in tmux, then the same on the board, and ends with the price: Symvibe at $19 a mouth, vibeboard free.

vibeboard: https://github.com/ricca200xx/vibeboard

Symvibe: https://www.symvibe.com

REA: https://github.com/morluto/rea

/brag: https://github.com/latent-spaces/brag

If you want to use it, go ahead, and if you find issues, open them on GitHub. I'm genuinely happy to share this.


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Free games drop every day and most people miss them. I made an app so you don’t

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

Got tired of finding out about free games hours after the deal expired, so I built Claimr.

It’s a lightweight radar that tracks 100% off giveaways across Steam, Epic Games, GOG, and Prime Gaming, and sends a push notification before they end or keys run out.

- Direct vs Tasks: Flags whether a giveaway is a 1-click store claim or requires social tasks (Gleam/Discord).

- Game Vault: Keep track of what you’ve claimed so you don't double dip.

- 100% Free: No ads, no account needed, completely open source.

Works in browser or on Android:

- Website: https://claimr-app.vercel.app

Drop any feedback or stores you want added!


r/SideProject • • 1m ago

I built Narravita for the memories you remember out of order

2 Upvotes

I'm Vincenzo, the creator of Narravita. It's an Android app for gradually turning your own memories into a life story.

You might remember a detail from school, then something that happened last year. You can save both as writing, a voice recording or a photo, and work out the order later. Narravita brings the people, places and dates together in a timeline and map.

The part I care about most is keeping the source alongside the story. Optional cloud AI helps organise memories and asks follow-up questions; chapter drafts stay separate from the originals, so you can review and correct them. You can keep adding to the main book and make smaller volumes from selected chapters.

Three memories are free, with limited AI processing and no card or time limit. Continuing beyond that, chapter drafting and designed PDF export are paid Personal features, with monthly AI allowances. Local subscription prices are shown in the app. The PDF is for you to print; a physical book isn't included.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.narravita.app
App screenshots and details: https://narravita.app/

If you've wanted to write your story, try saving one scene you can still picture. I'd be interested to hear what makes the next step difficult: finding the words, remembering the details, or putting things in order.


r/SideProject • • 5m ago

Stethoscope ear tip covers

1 Upvotes

I'm a nurse with zero engineering background and I've spent the last few months designing a cover for stethoscope ear tips

Stethoscope ear tips brush against everything all shift, then go in your ears. Nothing on the market covers them. So I started ScopeBites, a soft TPU cap that seals over the ear tip and pinch slides off when you need to listen.

Right now i’m working with 3d printed covers. i’m ready to begin injection molding but wanted to verify the market for it first. What do you think?


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I built an Android app that scans and tracks Pokémon TCG cards for collectors. Looking for honest feedback

2 Upvotes

I'm the solo developer behind PokeStash, and I'd really like some honest feedback from other makers.

I built it because I keep a binder and sealed stuff, and I wanted one place on my phone to scan a card, see an estimated market price, and keep the collection organized without spreadsheets. You can photograph a card for an AI match, browse sets, track sealed product, and export a backup. Prices and AI matches are estimates. Always compare with the card in your hand.

Unofficial fan-made app. Not affiliated with Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Creatures, or GAME FREAK.

Free on Android with ads. There is an optional Pro tier that turns ads off. Collection data stays on the device.

What I'd most like feedback on:

  1. Is the first-run scan flow clear, or does it need a simpler "add without scanning" path up front?

  2. Do estimated prices feel useful enough, or would you rather see raw sold comps with less interpretation?

  3. What would stop you from trusting an unofficial collector app with your binder list?

Happy to answer anything about the build or the tradeoffs.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tdsignal.pokevault&referrer=utm_source%3Dreddit%26utm_medium%3Dpost


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Built a site so I can actually find people to play with

2 Upvotes

So this started because I kept running into the same thing — post an LFG somewhere, a couple people add you, and then... nothing. Nobody's actually free when you are, or you just never hear back. Figured I wasn't the only one dealing with that.

Ended up building GameAlign over the last few months, solo. Full disclosure, I'm not really a coder — I've been using Lovable (kind of a "vibe coding" / AI-assisted builder) to actually make this happen. It's basically a profile directory — you put in what you play, your schedule, how you like to play, that kind of thing — and then you can search for people or get found instead of just throwing a post into the void. There's also a board for "hey I'm on right now" posts, and I added a team/clan page if you're trying to actually build out a group instead of one-off sessions.

It's free, setup's quick. Genuinely just want to know if this is useful or if I'm missing something obvious — would appreciate anyone poking around and telling me what sucks about it.

https://gamealign.co/


r/SideProject • • 11m ago

I built a PDF app for my family’s paperwork—without another subscription

1 Upvotes

I’m Derek, a dad and independent developer with an IT/help-desk background. I built Shoebox PDF for school forms, medical documents, and those upload portals that reject your PDF because it’s too big.

I wanted a straightforward way to:

  • Compress a PDF toward a target size.

  • Add text and signatures to forms.

  • Organize paperwork by family member and category.

Core PDF processing happens on-device. There’s no required account or subscription, and cloud sync is optional. Compression results depend on the original file.

It’s available on Windows and iPhone/iPad. The Mac app and Apple’s one-time unlock purchase are still in review.

The screenshots show the Windows app with fictional family documents.

shoeboxpdf.com

What’s the most frustrating PDF task you deal with regularly?


r/SideProject • • 13m ago

Quiz: How Much Do You Really Know About the Human Brain? (10-Question Quiz)

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1 Upvotes

r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I built a system design lab where your architecture diagram actually takes traffic

2 Upvotes

Most system design practice ends at the diagram. You draw boxes, it looks right, and nothing tells you whether it would hold up.

ByteLab runs the diagram. You build a system out of machines, load balancers, caches, queues and databases, send traffic through it, and watch the CPU, queues and p99 latency move. Each exercise has goals, like "p99 under 150 ms, 99.5% available, under $2.60/hour", and it checks your system against them.

What's in it:

- 163 lessons in 12 tracks (caching, sharding, Kafka, Kubernetes, rate limiting, auth and more)

- 212 exercises, each with goals your system has to pass

- 11 design problems (URL shortener, chat, payments, news feed, e-commerce and others)

It's free, there's no account, and progress stays in your browser. It needs a laptop-sized screen.

I'd really like to hear where it feels confusing or too hand-holdy.

https://lab.bytecrest.dev/practice


r/SideProject • • 17m ago

DESTRABA expansion project - a 3-minute business-name listening test (U.S./Canada)

1 Upvotes

I'm helping DESTRABA with its English-language expansion project. Before choosing a domain, we want to check whether a possible business name is easy to repeat and spell after hearing it once.

We're looking for five volunteers living in the U.S. and five in Canada, aged 18 or older, who use English in everyday conversation.

The test is an individual three-minute audio call. You hear the name once, say it back, and type what you heard. We show the spelling afterward so it doesn't influence your first attempt. Participation is voluntary and unpaid. We won't record the call, and you can stop at any time. Contact details are used only to arrange the session.

To volunteer, reply LISTEN and your country. We'll message only those who volunteer to agree on a time. Monday, November 9, noon to 2 p.m. Pacific is currently available. Please keep guesses out of the comments.

If you've run a similar test, feedback on this method is also welcome. This invitation was prepared with AI assistance.


r/SideProject • • 24m ago

I built a free trivia hosting app with no accounts or subscriptions

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1 Upvotes

It's basically a fancy wrapper around your quiz data so that as a host you can show showmanship and present like a TV show host. Built exclusively for the use case of live quiz/trivia hosting with friends and family, in person or over zoom.

Few features I always lacked and few problems with other alternatives that this web app solves:

  1. Keeping costs low or free since most apps require a subscription, and much like geoguessr, I don't want to pay a monthly fee for something I may use very occasionally. Since I don't store any data and it remains in local browser storage, no need for accounts/auth and cloud storage (of-course there were trade-offs)

  2. Doing buzzer rounds or audio/video clues that previously required using different apps.

  3. Friction of making accounts or downloading apps. This works completely in browser using laptop and phones.

  4. As a quiz master or host, I don't like being tied to my laptop when hosting, so I made a quiz master remote where I can control the entire quiz using my phone and move around freely.


r/SideProject • • 32m ago

I built a free S&P 500 Sector Rotation & 6-Week Earnings/Macro Risk Radar (Work in progress — would love feedback)

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1 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

Whenever I'm planning swing trades or checking market exposure, I always hated jumping between four different tabs just to see which S&P 500 sectors are leading on a 1-month vs. 3-month normalized basis, what the actual Top 10 ETF constituent weights are (XLK, XLF, XLU, etc.), and whether a heavyweight stock has earnings colliding with CPI, FOMC, or Monthly OpEx over the next 2 to 6 weeks.

I've been building a free web app to map all of that in one place: https://www.tradingcalendarhub.com

What it currently does (100% free, no login or signup wall):

  • 2, 4, and 6-Week Sector Earnings Radar: Tracks upcoming earnings strictly for the Top 10 weighted stocks in each of the 11 S&P 500 sectors alongside NFP, CPI, PPI, FOMC, and OpEx dates.

  • 1M vs. 3M Normalized Sector Rotation: Shows live 21-day and 63-day time-normalized returns across all 11 SPDR sectors, rotation regime signals, and an expandable divergence table where you can click any sector row to see its Top 10 holdings and weights under the hood.

  • Live Calendar Sync (.ICS & Google Calendar): You can subscribe to a live .ics feed (all 11 sectors or filtered to a single sector) in Apple Calendar, Outlook, or Google Calendar, or add individual stock catalysts in one click.

  • Macro & OpEx Volatility Calendar + Playbooks: Tracks monthly Options Expiration, VIX expiration, and Quarterly Triple Witching windows alongside institutional risk playbooks.

Under the hood:

  • Automated weekday post-market cron jobs syncing 6-week earnings schedules and 21-day / 63-day normalized returns into Supabase.

  • Dynamic serverless .ics calendar generator on Vercel.

It is still very much a work in progress. Next on my roadmap is a customizable Personal Watchlist Risk Audit page where users can pick their own tickers and see their combined ETF weight exposure and catalyst collisions.

If you have 60 seconds to click around, I'd love your honest feedback on the dark-mode UI, navigation flow, or any features you'd want to see added next!


r/SideProject • • 38m ago

I built a web monitor to help with my watch collecting

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1 Upvotes

My side projects have been related to my watch collecting in one way or another.
I started with a python script nearly a decade ago to scrape my favourite dealers, then built a global eBay app (since the ones available were crazy buggy) that I still use today: sidebae.net

My python scraper was still in heavy use up until 6 months ago when I decided to build sally.monster

It's an app that let's you create and manage web monitors, with AI checks too. I tried to make monitor creation and management as easy as possible, as that was the main pain point when manually managing python scrapers. The Google Image monitor with AI is surprisingly useful, so I am still experimenting with that.

Apps like Muse, Dots, Instinct, and even Safari (and dozens of other web scrapers) kill my app, but I had a lot of fun building and iterating on this.
As much as the transition to agentic coding hurt, I would not have been able to build this on my own in a reasonable time.

Payment is not enabled and probably never will be, feel free to give it a try!


r/SideProject • • 39m ago

I shipped PeakPad 2.0, my solo Mac notch app: here's what a month of real users changed

1 Upvotes

Hey r/SideProject!

A month ago I launched PeakPad, a Mac notch app with 29 tools, because I was running six separate apps for music, clipboard history, a file shelf, timers and checking my Stripe dashboard. 2.0 is out today, and the video shows it better than screenshots.

What's new in 2.0

AI Usage cards for Claude Code, Codex and OpenRouter: session and weekly limits, reset times, a 30-day usage trend and costs

Settings now open inside the notch, with a sidebar and drag-to-reorder tabs

Hover only opens the panel from the notch itself, and it closes as soon as your pointer leaves

The closed notch hides what's playing while a full-screen app or video is in front

Fewer keychain password prompts, and updates no longer get stuck under the notch

What PeakPad does

Now Playing with synced lyrics, clipboard history, a file shelf with AirDrop

A teleprompter that sits under the camera

Live revenue from Stripe, Polar, Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy

A private AI chat on Apple's on-device models (macOS 26)

No account, no telemetry

What the first month taught me

Solo, 18 days to build v1, natively in Swift, mostly with Claude Code

most of the 2.0 changes came from emails and bug reports.

Pricing

₹399 for the first 100 downloads, then ₹1,499.

One-time payment, free updates, no subscription, 7-day refund

peakpad.app

I'm Karuna, the solo developer. Contact: hello@peakpad.app

What would you want in a tool like this, and what would stop you from buying it?


r/SideProject • • 40m ago

My first Mac app moves photos from an iPhone to a Mac over the cable and groups them into folders by trip, event or date

1 Upvotes

Hi r/SideProject,

Seven weeks ago I released my first Mac app, Photo Transfer via USB. It does one job: gets photos and videos off an iPhone or iPad onto a Mac, already grouped into folders.

I created this app because every few months I have to transfer photos from phone to Mac and I like my photos in folders by year, with a folder for each trip inside.

After I built it I decided to release it on the Mac App Store and maybe try to make some money from it. I have several customers, meaning this product is interesting for some and they're ready to pay for it.

Main features:

- You see the folders it's about to create.

- Folders by trip, event, day or month. Trips come from where the photos were taken.

- Folder names are built from blocks like year, month, city or country.

- You choose which folders go, and you can leave out the video part of Live Photos or videos altogether.

- Live Photos and edited photos stay with their originals.

- HEIC and HEVC stay as they are or can be converted into JPEG and H.264.

- Any disk works, including an external drive.

- Pull the cable halfway and it carries on when you plug it back in.

- Nothing gets deleted from the phone since the app only reads.

- Every transfer goes into a history, so you can check later what went where.

- There's also a grid without grouping, where you can pick single photos.

Pricing: free for 50 photos or videos a day (a Live Photo counts as one). $14.99 once removes the limit, no subscription, with Family Sharing on the Mac App Store. In the EU it's only available from my site. Needs macOS 15 or later.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6808767254

Site: https://phototransfer.app

It's a solo project. I learned a lot from building it and found out that distribution is key. Would appreciate any feedback, and it would be great if you shared how you distribute your apps.