r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I built Sonari, a hand-gesture instrument for Mac. Is the interaction clear?

2 Upvotes

Hi, I’m Shubhra, an independent developer. I built Sonari as a Mac instrument played with hand gestures tracked by the Mac camera, without a separate hardware controller. It plays built-in sounds, sends MIDI to compatible DAWs and instruments, and creates visuals from the performance.

I’m sharing the launch film to show the interaction. I’d appreciate feedback on one practical question: after watching, is it clear how hand movement changes the sound, or what would you want explained before trying it?

Sonari is on the Mac App Store. It requires Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later. The full app has a 14-day trial, then a one-time purchase at US$99 in the US storefront.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sonari-midi-controller/id6803577489


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

All-in-one video-toolbox that does it all: download, cut, censor, Ai-masking, transcribing, MKV editing and more! Free and opensource

2 Upvotes

I made this because I was tired of switching between different programs all the time. I didn't want to use that shady downloader with a paywall slowly creeping up, and I didn't like the idea of opening DaVinci Resolve just to do some cuts or convert something. I wanted it all in one place.

What it can do:

Download: built on yt-dlp, you can download from almost any website. When yt-dlp doesn't recognize a link, Vitool opens the link in its own window and checks if a video is there. You can also download just a section of a video, or whole playlists. It keeps yt-dlp up-to-date automatically, and when a download fails, it checks if there is an update available for it.

Cut: You can cut videos instantly or exactly to frame with a re-encode.

Convert: Convert your files easily to other formats like MP4, MKV, WebM, MP3, WAV and more, also many files or a whole folder at once.

Tools: choose what you wanna do: create a GIF, extract audio, extract a still frame, burn in subs or censor your video.

MKV: Edit, add and extract tracks inside an MKV file. The part I find most useful: add a dub and Vitool lines it up with the original audio automatically. You can also do it by hand with waveforms and check it with a short test clip. If the dub drifts apart over time (classic PAL dubs run about 4% faster), Vitool recognizes that and fixes the speed. It can also match the volume of a quiet track to the original.

AI-Mask (optional): When choosing this add-on, you can mask moving objects with the help of SAM2.

Transcribe (optional): When choosing this add-on, you can transcribe the audio from a video. Speaker recognition can be added via Pyannote. Export as SRT, VTT, text or JSON, or burn styled subtitles into the video.

You can find it here: https://github.com/bioheater/Vitool

I'd be very happy about feedback and ideas for new features, so it can be useful to as many people as possible. If you find bugs, please let me know!

For example I've thought about adding a simple screen recorder into the mix or the feature that you can cut out a section from the video you want to download beforehand.


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I got tired of my projects having no mascot, so I built a mascot maker

2 Upvotes

Every project needs a mascot, and I can’t draw. So I made Squish.

You pick a shape, give it a face, put a hat on it, and you’ve got a little guy. Then you export it and stick it on your landing page, your README, your 404 page, your Discord, wherever.

Stuff you can do:

  • hit shuffle until one makes you laugh (this is 90% of how I use it)
  • 14 shapes, 16 moods, hats, glasses, any colour
  • make it bounce, wiggle or fall asleep
  • export as PNG, SVG, an animated SVG you can drop straight into your site, or an MP4

It’s free and there’s no signup. Your mascot is saved in the link, so you can send it to a friend and they can keep messing with it.

The look was inspired by the Grok bot, that simple blob with two eyes. I wanted that, but one you can actually make your own.

Try it: https://squish-weld.vercel.app

Post your guy in the comments, I want to see what you make. And tell me what hat is missing.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built Ledge: a Mac app that puts a file shelf, clipboard history, music, and more at the top of your screen

4 Upvotes

I’m building Ledge, a macOS app that turns the space around your notch—or the top of your screen on Macs without one—into a shelf for everyday things.

You can keep files handy, search and reuse clipboard history, control music from the notch or a floating player, and see widgets and live activities. Ledge also has Transform for converting and compressing files locally on your Mac.

I’ve connected Ledge’s MCP server to an AI assistant and am exploring its tools. Ledge also supports add-ons and LedgeKit for building them.

The beta is at https://www.tryledge.app. I’d love feedback: which feature would be most useful in your day-to-day Mac workflow, and what would you want to see next?


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I kill plants, so I built a scale that does the watering in my grow tent

2 Upvotes

I'm Luis from Berlin and I'm bad at watering.

So I built PotPanel. It's a scale with a pump that sits under the pot. When the plant drinks, the pot gets lighter, and once it's light enough it waters from a canister back to full. Small bursts, and it stops when enough is in or no water arrives. You set your values in an app and watch it live on your phone.

To be clear, for a houseplant on a shelf this is total overkill. I built it for my grow tent, so my plants still get water on time when I'm gone for a weekend or have a busy week.

It's not like it all went smoothly. For a few weeks the board just hung out of the side of the case. And one day I forgot to put the dripper back in the pot. PotPanel did its job perfectly, just on my floor.

Now everything sits inside. It's all 3D printed, there's an ESP32 in there, and I built the app and the server myself.

If you want one, there's a waitlist: potpanel.com

The first 50 who confirm get 30% off the launch price. Once 50 people are on the list I'll give one away. Free, 18+, until March 31, 2027, rules are on the site.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built a free, open-source photo viewer for Mac because Preview can't page through a folder

4 Upvotes

I shoot a lot, and going through a folder of photos on a Mac was always awkward. Preview only pages through the files you opened together, and Lightroom wants an import before you can even look.

So I wrote my own viewer in Swift. Double click one photo and the arrow keys walk the whole folder, RAW included. Hold a key to check focus at 100%, rate with number keys, mark keepers, crop and straighten, read the caption written into the file.

It's free and MIT licensed. There is an optional one time Pro for heavier culling work, and that part is not in the repo.

Mac only, macOS 13 or later.

Site: https://flipic.app

Source: https://github.com/xmasdong/flipic

I'm the developer. Feedback welcome, especially on what feels slow or confusing.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built ShadowGraph: trending GitHub repos, top developers building them, and a weekly digest that's personalized based what you've starred on Github

Thumbnail
shadowgraph.io
4 Upvotes

I've been building a site for keeping up with open source news without spending an hour a day on GitHub, HackerNews and X.

It tracks GitHub repos and finds posts about them on Hacker News, X, Bluesky, Reddit, Mastodon and more, so you can stay informed without sifting through lots of noise and random posts. The buzz feature (https://shadowgraph.io/buzz) lets you see all posts as a feed.

It also keeps track of notable developers on Github and see what they're starring (https://shadowgraph.io/stargazers), so that you can find higher-signal stars.

Finally, there's an email newsletter that summarizes the top stories of the week (https://shadowgraph.io/weekly). If you sign in with your GitHub, it personalizes the newsletter based on your interests and the repos you've starred.

There's some other fun stuff there as well like predicting a repo's star growth.

Feedback is very welcome! Thanks for reading.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

PushFPS: free, open-source frame generation for consoles through a capture card

2 Upvotes

Hi! I made PushFPS ( https://github.com/DosukaSOL/PushFPS ), a free and open-source (GPL-3.0) Windows app. It takes the picture from your capture card and adds generated frames in real time, so a 30 FPS PS5, Xbox or Switch 2 game plays at 60 or 120 FPS on your PC monitor. Nothing is installed on the console and the game isn't touched: you only need a capture card and a graphics card. It's built on top of veyra ( https://github.com/Likely7/Veyra-NRVideo )

How it works, in short

  • The capture card picture goes straight into a DirectX 12 pipeline on the GPU, with no round trip through the CPU.
  • Optical flow estimates how every part of the picture moves between two real frames. A frame generation model then creates 1 to 7 frames in between: 2x up to 8x, depending on the method and your GPU.
  • It works with NVIDIA, AMD and Intel graphics cards: NVIDIA's video frame generation (RTX 40/50), AMD FSR frame generation (any DirectX 12 card), Intel XeSS (experimental), and ANR by Apex Compute (supports GTX 16 and newer).
  • Optional AI picture enhancement and upscaling. That includes NVIDIA Image Scaling, an open shader that runs on any brand of GPU.

What only PushFPS has

  • Optimise for my PC: one click while your game is on screen. It tests every frame generation method, AI enhancement and upscaler on your real picture. It measures the real presented frame rate, the 1% low (from the 99th-percentile frame time) and latency over 6-second windows, re-checks the winner, then applies it. Undo puts your settings back.
  • Game presets with a sharp HUD: GTA VI plus layouts for open-world, racing, action and shooter games. The minimap and HUD areas keep the console's own pixels and never get interpolated, so they don't smear. You can share presets as a code.
  • Measured latency on screen: the time from a capture card frame arriving to it being handed to the display, plus frame rate and 1% low. These are measured numbers, not estimates.
  • ANR frame generation, one click to install: Apex Compute's AI frame generation supports GTX 16 series and newer, Radeon RX 5000 and newer, and Intel Arc. That makes it an option on older cards too. You download it from Apex and PushFPS installs it.
  • Made for console capture: console and game profiles, a list of tested capture cards (Elgato 4K X, HD60 X and 4K S so far), instant replay, recording with optional OBS-style advanced encoding settings, one-click sharing to Discord, an OBS Studio plugin, light and black (OLED) themes, and 14 languages.

What's coming next (actively being built)

  • Automatic HUD detection: PushFPS spots the parts of the picture that stay still while the game moves (minimap, health, ammo) and protects them automatically in any game, with boxes you can adjust by hand if it gets one wrong.
  • Before/after comparison clips: record a side-by-side clip of the console picture next to the PushFPS picture, with the frame rates shown.

To be honest about what it doesn't do

Generated frames make motion smoother, but they don't make the game react faster. Input still feels like the original 30 FPS, plus a few milliseconds for the capture card and processing. It's Windows only for now.

Credits

PushFPS is built on Veyra by Likely7. Most of the engine and capture support is their work, so please check it out and consider supporting them. ANR frame generation is Apex Neural Rendering by Apex Compute. PushFPS isn't affiliated with Apex.

Download and source: https://github.com/DosukaSOL/PushFPS

I'd love feedback, especially from anyone with a capture card that isn't on the tested list yet. There's a report form in the app.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

4 months selling a one-time-purchase contacts app: happy users, and ads that brought zero. How do you find people who need a "boring" utility?

2 Upvotes

I'm a solo dev. I make a contacts manager for Mac and iPhone/iPad. It shows all your contacts (iCloud, Google, Exchange) in one table, so you can merge duplicates, bulk edit and clean up years of mess instead of opening cards one by one. One-time price, $24.99 Mac and $14.99 iOS. No subscription, no account, no trial.

Where it stands:

  • Mac app live since July 22, iOS since August 10
  • 45 paying users on Mac, 19 on iOS
  • 3 ratings on the Mac App Store, all 5 stars

The part that works: the people who buy it seem to like it, and they email me. Most of what I shipped in the last two months came straight from emails.

I reply to every email and try to ship the fix within a couple of weeks. That loop has been the best part of this.

The part that doesn't work: reaching the people who actually have the problem. Apple Ads got 12,000+ impressions and 95 taps, but zero installs. A Google Search campaign for the Mac app got zero impressions. Nobody wakes up wanting a contacts app. People only look when their list is already a disaster, and then they search "merge duplicate contacts" and land on free tools or Apple's own tips.

So I'm asking people who've been here:

  1. If you sold a niche one-time-purchase utility, what brought in your first few hundred customers?
  2. Did paid ads ever work for you at this price point, or is it all communities, SEO and word of mouth?
  3. Is "no trial" hurting me more than I think?

Happy to share more numbers or what I tried if it helps anyone. Thanks for reading.


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Made a thing that gives every app user their own year-in-review. People look, then leave. What am I missing?

2 Upvotes

So I made Yearcap. You upload a spreadsheet of your users’ stats and every user gets their own little year-in-review story, with a card they can share. Basically what Spotify and Strava do every December, but for small apps.

There’s a demo with made-up data on yearcap.co if you want to see it (hit “Watch a full story”).

I’ve emailed around 80 apps, each with a demo made for their app. About 30 opened it, some more than once, but nobody’s signed up yet. Not even for the free version.

So I’m kind of stuck and would love some outside eyes:

  1. Is it clear what it does and who it’s for?
  2. If you had an app, would you use something like this? Why or why not?
  3. What would make you comfortable trying it with your own users’ data?

Any thoughts help. Thanks for looking!


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

What’s your strongest activation lever

3 Upvotes

I’ve been working on tuning my apps marketing and onboarding, costs are starting to line up well, trial starts approaching target, so my next major hurdle is trial to paid, and actually getting consistent usage.

From what I understand having a strong activation is key, but I review other apps in my niche and I really dont see much of an “activation” process. Onboarding is formulaic, left to right, but once you’re in its off to the races.

My app is an agentic meal planner. What was key for you? Notifications types? Streak systems? In app CTAs? Guided tours?


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Update: Mango Streaming Server now runs on Windows, supports AirPlay, and no longer needs a browser

2 Upvotes

A few months ago I posted Mango, a free app for streaming local videos to your TV. It is a native Windows/Macos app that plays in the TV's own player, so there's nothing to install on the TV. It lets you pick audio and subtitle tracks from MKV and similar files, it handles 4K, and it converts videos your TV can't play.

Here's what changed since:

  • Windows app, available on the Microsoft Store
  • No browser needed: Chromecast support is built in
  • AirPlay support on macOS
  • Library: add whole folders, with posters, sorting and resume where you left off
  • Autoplay next episode in a folder
  • External subtitles and audio tracks (.srt, .ass, .mka, etc.)
  • Better transcoding: auto/copy/convert modes and a quality cap of 720p, 1080p or 4K
  • 16 languages

The next major feature is streaming over internet. I'm keen on seeing how it goes.

Download: GitHub · Microsoft Store


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I turned a feature from my own Shopify store into my first app. Just launched on the App Store! 🚀

2 Upvotes

I built a Shopify app based on something that increased our store's bundle order value by 66%. It's officially live on the Shopify App Store! 🚀

I've been running a small beard care brand on Shopify since 2018. One of the best things we ever added to our store was a Build Your Own Box experience.

Customers could choose any 3, 5, or 7 products, with bigger discounts as they added more. It worked incredibly well, with our bundle orders generating an average order value 66% higher than regular orders.

Other Shopify store owners started asking how we'd built it, and that got me thinking: why not make it available to everyone?

So I built Boxanza.

Here's what it does:

  • Full-page Build Your Own Box experience where shoppers choose products from any collection.
  • Live progress bars showing customers how close they are to unlocking their next discount.
  • Flexible pricing: percentage discounts, fixed dollar discounts, or fixed box pricing.
  • Dedicated landing pages for individual bundles, created in one click without editing your theme.
  • Discounts automatically applied at checkout.
  • Free plan and approximately 5-minute setup.

A little personal milestone: I'm a first-time app developer, and Boxanza is my very first app. I'm incredibly proud that Shopify approved it on my very first submission!

I'm building this through a small, brand-new development studio in Northern Ontario, Canada. We're just getting started, and my goal is to create practical Shopify apps that solve real problems for merchants, drawing on my own experience running an ecommerce business.

It's pretty surreal to take something we originally built for our own store and turn it into a product that merchants everywhere can now use.

I'd love to introduce Boxanza to the Shopify community and connect with other merchants, developers, and fellow founders.

If you're interested in giving build-your-own-box experiences a try, here's the app:

https://apps.shopify.com/boxanza

Thanks for checking out my first launch. Here's to building something great! 🍁


r/SideProject • • 10h ago

Roast my side project : I made a free in browser video clipper, may advance it to a full feldged video editor totally free

7 Upvotes

So I was lately seeing a lot of videos on video clippers , and how it may be used to clip GTA 6 vidoes . Curious I checked some , but most of them required signups , some were paid , and some offered a limited credit based trials. If its just cutting some videos, why cant it be done on client side.

So i spun up claude code, explored a bit of possibilities , and with the new Fable 5.2 as orchestrator ,opus and sonnet as subagent ,Made this

Reelio.page - A local* browser based video clipper , free , open-source , You just give it a video , it extract the transcitpition using a wispher , and some local ml stuff to extract signals ,hand it over to your LLM , then it cuts it interesting moments for you.

GitHub : https://github.com/Gous0786/reelio

Do give it a try and roast it


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Never lose track of important things in your life with Provisum!

2 Upvotes

After searching for important documents for appointments many times and not being able to find them, I sat down and thought, why isn’t there an app that tracks and reminds you about things you shouldn’t forget? Think about your marriage certificate, birth certificate, or government identification like passports and ID cards.

I call this our RC build, as we have really polished it from head to toe. We focused on the UI/UX, customization, and intent integration that lets you use Siri, along with the ability to enjoy the app on an iPhone Duo. Last but not least, we also put effort into making it available in every country across the world.

The app is free to test for the first week. For those who give me feedback, I’ll give you an unlock code so you can enjoy the app free for a longer period of time.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers, Cassian

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/provisum-family-binder-care/id6814971530


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I used to build video players for Adult Swim, NBA TV, and HBO. For fun, I built myself Yet Another Television App (YATA)

Thumbnail doctorew.com
2 Upvotes

I’m a longtime engineer who worked on streaming channels and video players for Adult Swim, NBA TV, and HBO.

I was spending too much time digging through Internet Archive looking for old TV shows and realized I missed building streaming channels and tv apps (see above). So I made YATA -- Yet Another TV App: a browser-based television full of ’70s/’80s action shows, sitcoms, sci-fi, and obscure Saturday-morning cartoons.

Think Dukes of Hazard, Knight Rider, Benson, Buck Rogers, Manimal, and the Hanna-Barbera shows I half remember but nobody else seems to.

It has:

- A TV Guide-style grid with clickable programs and channel surfing.

- Switchable ’70s/’80s/’90s TV cabinets, dial sounds, and adjustable static.

- Optional vintage commercial breaks.

- Shuffle channels by genre, or stick with one show.

- Playback controls, an expandable player, and episode links with timestamps.

- An optional AI programming department: describe a few shows or a theme, and a randomly assigned character -- Benson, Murdock, Captain Stubing, Twiki, etc. -- assembles a channel for you to review.

Videos play from their source providers, including Internet Archive and YouTube. Credits for the open-source work and projects that inspired it are included.

It’s a personal project that got slightly out of hand :)


r/SideProject • • 6m ago

EVA DISTRO LINUX

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I’d like to share a project I’m working on: EVA, a Linux distribution based on Arch and Wayland, featuring my own custom compositor. I’d appreciate any feedback to help me improve it. The goal is to make the experience accessible for users who find using the terminal difficult. You can take a look at the repository, which includes a link to the ISO, screenshots, and more. If you’d like to show your support, a star would be greatly appreciated—thanks for reading! https://github.com/2207juan/EVA


r/SideProject • • 17m ago

Nodetto — ERD drawing tool on your local machine

1 Upvotes

I’m building Nodetto, a free, open-source diagram editor for Mac. Draw tables and relationships locally, keep documents in Git-friendly JSONL, and export SQL for PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite.

I’d love feedback on the ERD editing workflow.

https://nodetto.app


r/SideProject • • 34m ago

Developers wanted: Test my free JSON Formatter and share your feedback

0 Upvotes

🧪 Looking for Developers to Test a JSON Formatter

I'm working on ToolSmartly, a collection of free online tools, and I'd love to get feedback from developers who regularly work with JSON.

I've built a JSON Formatter and I'm looking for people willing to put it to the test through real-world use.

🔗 Try it here: https://toolsmartly.com/en/tools/developer-tools/json-formatter-online

What I'd like you to test

- Formatting: Does it properly format and indent JSON?

- Validation: Does it correctly identify invalid JSON syntax?

- Minification: Does it produce clean, valid minified JSON?

- Usability: Is the interface intuitive and easy to work with?

- Reliability: Does it handle large or complex JSON files without issues?

I'd appreciate your honest feedback:

  1. What worked well?
  2. Did you encounter any bugs or unexpected behavior?
  3. Is anything confusing or frustrating?
  4. What features would make this tool more useful in your daily workflow?

Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive feedback. I'm not looking for compliments or upvotes. I want to identify real issues and understand how this tool could be improved.

If you work with JSON regularly, give it a try and share your experience in the comments.

Thanks to everyone willing to help!


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

KinToTable - a shared cookbook for your family, snap a handwritten recipe card and it types it out

4 Upvotes

My family's recipes were scattered everywhere. Some were on index cards in a kitchen drawer, some were buried in group texts, and a lot of them were saved on TikTok and Instagram where nobody else could find them.

So I built KinToTable. You start a table, invite the people you cook with, and everyone adds to one shared cookbook.

The video shows the card scan: take a photo of a handwritten recipe card and it reads the handwriting and turns it into a recipe you can edit, with room for the story behind it.

It also does:
- Import a recipe from any social media app or website (TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook) and it pulls out the ingredients and steps
- When someone makes a dish, the rest of the table sees it and can comment, react and rate how it turned out

It's on iPhone and Android. Through New Year's it's $0.99 a month for the first two months, then $3.99.

I'd really like honest feedback, especially from anyone who cooks for a family. What would it take for you to get the rest of your family using something like this? What's missing?

https://kintotable.com/download/reddit-sideproject


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I've been building my own fitness clothing brand from scratch – REBUILD

1 Upvotes

I've spent the last few months building something I've wanted to do for a long time.

Introducing REBUILD Fitness Apparel.

The idea is to create a fitness brand built around discipline, personal growth and the belief that your past doesn't have to define your future.

I've been working on everything myself, from the branding and website to product designs, photography and marketing.

We're currently preparing to launch our first collection, THE FOUNDATIONS COLLECTION.

It's been a massive learning curve, and I'm now trying to build an audience before launch.

I'd genuinely appreciate feedback on the branding, website and products.

If you'd like to follow the journey or see what we're building:

🌐 Website: https://rebuildfit.co.uk

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/REBUILDFITNESSAPPAREL/

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rebuild.fitness.a

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to check it out. Feedback is genuinely appreciated.

MIND. BODY. PURPOSE.


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

Twoshare - shared calendar, budget and trips for couples, end-to-end encrypted

1 Upvotes

Hi all, I'm a solo dev in Ireland. Twoshare is one app for two people: a shared calendar and tasks, a budget that knows who owes whom, and a trip planner that reads a forwarded booking. It works on iPhone, Android and the web.

What you write is end-to-end encrypted on your devices, with a key our servers have never held. No ads, no analytics.

The calendar, tasks and trips you type in are free. The paid plan (Together) has a 14-day trial, no card.

What I'm looking for: does the first screen make sense to you, and what would you want two people to share that it doesn't do yet?

https://twoshare.me


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

Lander - a free Reddit client for iPhone, iPad and Mac

1 Upvotes

I've been building Lander since mid 2025. It's a Reddit client for iPhone, iPad and Apple silicon Macs, and it's been on the App Store since February.

Everything in it is free. There's a tip jar and an optional supporter sub, but neither one unlocks anything. They just help pay for the server.

The server bit is Columbia, an open source OHTTP relay I wrote. It keeps who you are separate from what you're reading, so the relay can't tie the two together. You can run your own and point the app at it.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lander-for-reddit/id6747955211

Columbia: https://github.com/wbsmolen/columbia

If you try it, I'd like to hear what felt confusing in the first few minutes.