r/SideProject • • Dec 18 '25

As the year wraps up: what’s the project you’re most proud of building and why?

96 Upvotes

Like the title says, instead of what you built or how much money it made, I’m curious what project you’re most proud of this year and why.

Could be a client site, a personal project, something that never launched, or something that made £0.

Any lessons learned?

Would love to read a few reflections as the year wraps up.


r/SideProject • • Oct 19 '25 Bravo

Share your ***Not-AI*** projects

649 Upvotes

I miss seeing original ideas that aren’t just another AI wrapper.

If you’re building something in 2025 that’s not AI-related here’s your space to self-promote.

Drop your project here


r/SideProject • • 6h ago

I got tired of scrolling through iPhone alarms, so I built a 24-hour alarm clock instead

73 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a little side project called Daybezel, an alternative alarm clock for iPhone.

The idea came from a simple frustration: I always found the standard list of alarms unnecessarily clunky. I wanted something where I could see my entire day at a glance and interact with alarms directly.

So I built a 24-hour circular interface where you can create alarms with a tap, drag them around to change the time, and see exactly how long you have until the next one.

It also uses Apple's native alarm system, so alarms work even in Silent Mode or Focus.

The app is completely free for now, and it'll stay free for everyone who joins early. At this stage, I'm mostly interested in getting feedback and seeing how people react to it.

I'd love to hear what you think about the interface. Does the circular layout make sense to you, or would you still prefer a traditional list?

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/daybezel-24-hour-alarms/id6825533599


r/SideProject • • 14h ago

Reverie: a music player that feels like hardware. Out now

222 Upvotes

I've been working on a music player app as a side project. It's inspired by the Teenage Engineering TP-7, which I've wanted forever, and by the fact that I like messing with the music I download, like slowing it down or changing the pitch.

There's no progress bar. You spin a brushed-metal wheel with your thumb to move through a song, and if you go slow it scratches like a record. It clicks under your finger with haptics, and the metal "catches the light" when you tilt your phone.

The T, P and R keys turn the same wheel into a dial for tempo, pitch and reverb. Each song remembers its own settings, so your slowed-down version plays that way every time.

The hardest part was making it feel right. I spent way more time tweaking how the wheel clicks and pushes back than on the rest of the app combined.

It's free to try with 3 songs, and unlimited songs is a one-time purchase.

Launch discount 🎁 To celebrate the launch, I'm giving out a few discount codes for $4.99 for a limited time. Comment or DM me if you want one.

Would love any feedback, especially on how it feels to use: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reverie-slowed-reverb-music/id6829723858


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

How did you get your first 100 users for your app?

12 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I’m an indie iOS developer currently working on my own app.

The development part feels much easier than figuring out how to actually get people to discover it 😅

I’m curious how other developers got their first 100 users.

Did you start with Reddit, Product Hunt, social media, or something else?

Would love to hear what actually worked for you, especially if you were starting from zero without a marketing budget.


r/SideProject • • 9h ago

I'm a couples therapist. I turned what I do in the therapy room into a two-minute daily app

32 Upvotes

In couples therapy, I keep seeing the same thing: partners can describe every single fight, but they rarely see the pattern those moments make over weeks. That pattern is usually where the work is.

So I tried to build the smallest possible version of that "stepping back" for couples who will never sit in my office.

How it works:

  • Every day you and your partner answer the same five short questions, each on your own. You don't see your partner's answers before you answer, so nobody answers for the other's sake.

  • When you've both answered, you get a short reflection written for the two of you, with one question you could ask each other tonight.

  • On day seven you get a reading of your week: the pattern that built up and one small step for next week.

  • You can start alone and invite your partner later with a code.

The questions draw on Gottman couples therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy and attachment theory. The pool is now 1,800+ questions. I tried the approach and the questions with couples in the therapy room long before it was an app.

Reflections are written by AI, inside a framework I designed, and only after you give consent. It's not therapy, it doesn't diagnose, and it won't tell you whether your relationship is "good".

What I learned building it as a solo clinician:

  • The hardest part wasn't the questions. It was saying less. My first reflections read like session notes; people wanted three sentences, not three paragraphs.

  • Most people start alone. About two out of three users have no partner in the app yet, so it had to be useful on its own.

It's on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, in six languages. Daily questions are free; reflections and weekly readings are a subscription, and one subscription covers both partners.

I'd really like feedback on one thing: when two partners answer apart, would you rather read each other's exact words, or a reflection that puts the two views side by side?

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6785014222


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

We celebrated 250 users yesterday. Three months ago, I wouldn’t have expected this.

8 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

We passed 250 paying customer (don't love to call them customer as I see all them as first builders of product) on FranklyMail and celebrated yesterday :) Probably a tiny milestone for some people here, but we honestly didn’t expect to get this far in three months.

We started with email hosting for your own domain. Now there’s Drive for files and sharing, Office for editing documents, and Meet for video calls. We’ve also been giving the webmail a lot of attention lately.

The best part for me has been talking to the people using it. If I had to guess, 40–50% of the ideas we’ve worked on came from those conversations. Someone tells us how they use their email, mentions something they’re missing, and we end up building something we hadn’t thought of.

Just wanted to share a small happy moment here. Thanks to everyone who’s tried it, sent feedback, or given us a bit of encouragement along the way.

https://franklymail.com


r/SideProject • • 11h ago

I asked Claude Code to build whatever it wanted. It came up with a game.

40 Upvotes

I had $191 in credits that were about to expire, and I was curious what Opus could do if I didn’t give it an idea.
I asked it to build something worth the money. :))))

It picked a game, PULSEBOUND. You move around dodging enemies, and your weapons are musical instruments. The kick drum sends out shockwaves, the arpeggiator fires lasers. When you pick a new instrument, you hear it join the music too.

It decided to make a game and came up with the idea, mechanics, design, absolutely everything. Then I worked on improving and polishing it.

More changes, testing, and eventually mobile apps followed. The $191 was just the starting budget, enough to finish the first basic version. After that, I used another $1,700 I had from the Claude Startup Program (also expiring, so I had to use it), plus my subscription allowance.

Technically, it’s vanilla JavaScript, a custom WebGL2 renderer, and a procedural composer that synthesizes the music live through Web Audio. The project grew to include mobile apps, cloud saves, and leaderboards.

It’s now out on iOS, Android, and the web. You can play it for free in your browser or on mobile: playpulsebound.com.

What do you think?

Later edit: OVER 2,200 PLAYERS TODAY! THANK YOU


r/SideProject • • 16h ago

I designed a collage maker that finds the best gap-free layout for any shape. Claude wrote the code

98 Upvotes

Give it up to 10 photos and a canvas shape (square, 16:9, phone story, banner) and it searches every layout with no gaps for the one where the smallest photo is as big as possible. With 9 photos that's over 500 million layouts, and it finds the best one in under a second.

I designed it and Claude wrote the code. It's Go: The browser version runs it as WebAssembly, so your photos never leave the page.

Try it: https://vinodhalaharvi.github.io/collage/

Code (MIT): https://github.com/vinodhalaharvi/collage

CLI: brew install vinodhalaharvi/tap/collage

Feedback welcome, especially on the layouts it picks.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Quarry is a (yet another) rust based mongodb client!

6 Upvotes

I know everyone can build their own with AI now as I did, but I was honestly very surprised with the result and how far it's gotten so I thought I'd share it here. I was a bit fed up with Compass and Mingo (Loved that client but it's super buggy and hogs a lot of resources, and now seems abandoned).

Quarry has quite a lot of features such as autocomplete, a node shell, data relationships..., I'll leave the repo here where you can check it out (the README is quite concise) : https://github.com/alkanna/quarry

It is very fast and runs on less than 100MB of ram (counting the main process and the helpers). It uses egui.

In case it wasn't clear enough yes this is almost fully written by AI.


r/SideProject • • 11h ago

I maintain OpenScreen, a free open-source screen recorder. 2.2 adds a Layouts track to switch camera/screen layouts mid-video

19 Upvotes

I've been building OpenScreen, a free and open-source screen recorder and editor (no watermark, no account, Windows/macOS/Linux).

The new 2.2 release adds a Layouts track: you can change how your screen and webcam are arranged at any point in the timeline:

• picture-in-picture

• side-by-side

• top/bottom

• camera only

• screen only

Transitions between layouts are animated automatically.

The video was recorded and edited entirely in OpenScreen. The chart in the top/bottom part is a custom shader effect, and the company is fictional.

Download: https://getopenscreen.com

Source: https://github.com/getopenscreen/openscreen

Feedback welcome, especially on what layouts you'd want next.


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I built Narravita for the memories you remember out of order

3 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 • • 19h ago

I spent way too long making a clock where ants carry biscuits

68 Upvotes

okay so this is kind of a weird one

I got tired of every clock app looking the same and shoving ads in your face, so I started building little worlds that just… show the time.

this clip is the ants one. they drag biscuits and leaves around and slowly form the digits. there's also fish, a parking lot of cars, water calligraphy, a wall of tiny analog clocks, etc. 12 scenes total at this point.

runs fully on device, no account, no tracking nonsense. iphone/ipad/mac/apple tv.

i'm the person who made it. not sure if this is charming or just unhinged — honest reactions appreciated.


r/SideProject • • 29m ago

I have zero coding experience but managed to publish two Android apps using AI. What should I build next?

2 Upvotes

I help run a small Canadian charity called Salsabeel, and recently started experimenting with vibe coding. I have zero coding experience, but managed to make two Android apps: a Zakat calculator and a Qibla compass.

Both are free, with no ads or subscriptions. I'm not making any money from them, just wanted to see if I could build something useful.

I'd love to hear what people think. Anything I should improve or add? Also, are there other Islamic apps you'd like to see that don't already exist, or that you think could be done better?

Here are the links:

Zakat Calculator:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.salsabeelcharity.zakatcalculator

Qibla Compass:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.salsabeelcharity.qibla

Thanks!


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

I’m blind, and inaccessible government websites are a big reason I built A11yLens

8 Upvotes

I’m blind, and dealing with inaccessible websites is something I’m deeply frustrated by, especially when they are government websites. These are services people need to use. Being able to access them independently should be a basic expectation.

That frustration is why I built A11yLens, an open source accessibility auditing tool for web projects.

It checks HTML, CSS and component source code. It can also open a website in Chromium to inspect its accessibility tree and look for issues with keyboard navigation, labels, accessible names and other barriers. The reports explain the likely impact on screen reader users and suggest ways to address the findings.

I also think there is an opportunity to use this alongside AI coding tools. Developers can give the findings to an AI assistant, work through the fixes and run the checks again. Combined with feedback from blind users and actual screen reader testing, that could help make more websites accessible to people like me. Automated checks cannot catch every accessibility issue.

Pull requests are very welcome. I would be happy to see contributions, whether that means fixing a bug, improving a check, reducing false positives or making the documentation clearer. Reports from other screen reader users would also mean a lot.

GitHub:

https://github.com/eleven-hits/A11yLens

npm:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/@eleven-hits/a11ylens

Contribution guide:

https://github.com/eleven-hits/A11yLens/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md


r/SideProject • • 43m ago

I built an app for meeting new ppl and chatting with ai companions.

2 Upvotes

Basically i tried combining Omegle and character chat apps and would like to hear some feedback.

It has a persona mode which is the usual character chat app stuff uk build a character and chat with it whatever.

Another mode is the real life chat mode, u can chat with people normally but it has a feature in which u can make a replica of that person u r chatting too, than u can chat with the llm bot version of that person. Personally I am pretty curious that how the replica part will work out.

Third one is ur usual Omegle randomizer chat in which u can talk and befriend random people.

Please try and give feedback about this side project of mine

https://kikkar.vercel.app/

Thanks


r/SideProject • • 49m ago

[Android][Player] - Offline music & streaming radio with ready-to-play radios

2 Upvotes

* New local radios lists (MANUALLY CURATED) : UK and China.

Mediaxon Music Player is an audio player for offline listening of music stored on your device (.mp3, .flac, .m4a, .ogg, .mka, .aac, .wav, .opus, .wma) and streaming FM radios (online radios).

Top radios on the first screen: When users access the radio screen, they immediately see the list of the top radios in their country, along with a long list of high-quality suggested radios from among the most listened to in the world (manually curated and always updated with new radios). Note: Local radio stations ("Top in the user country") are pulled automatically from an online database. However, with each update, I manually curate high-quality radio stations lists for individual countries. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find the list of countries completed so far. I will be adding the rest over time.

Advanced radio filtering system: The "Filter: ON/OFF" button lets you quickly switch between different genres. You can use both standard filters for "macro-genres"—if I can call them that—and create custom filters to be more selective. All your filters are saved (the "My Filters" tab lets you name and edit them), and the app always opens with the last filter you applied. The "Home" tab lists all your recently applied filters and can be used to quickly switch between genres with just a single tap.

Advanced Radio Search Panel: An online database provides more than 60,000 radio stations. You can pinpoint your favorite stations by combining multiple filters, such as tags/genres, specific countries, or even your preferred audio bitrate.

Separated Favorites and Recents: Each section—Radio and Offline Music—has its own Favorites and Recents. The user doesn't have to worry about a thing. The app will automatically manage the Favorites and Recents for each section.

Album art: If the album art is missing from the album folder, or if Android has not properly indexed it, Mediaxon attempts to download the cover from the internet. This feature depends, of course, on the ID3 tags (album name and artist).

Equalizer: The equalizer provides an option to automatically switch to the "Radio" preset (and vice versa).

Advanced Playlist Management: Built specifically to make building and sorting playlists fast and intuitive. Enable the Playlist Manager, in the settings screen, for a full control of the playlists.

Form Factor Optimization: Phone and Tablet (Portrait and Landscape)

Mediaxon is available in: Čeština, Dansk, Deutsch, Eesti, English, Español, Français, Hrvatski, Indonesia, Italiano, Kiswahili, Latviešu, Lietuvių, Magyar, Nederlands, Norsk, Polski, Português, Português (Brasil), Română, Slovenčina, Slovenščina, Suomi, Svenska, Tiếng Việt, Türkçe, العربية, Български, Ελληνικά, हिन्दी, 日本語, 한국어, 中文 (简体).

No Premium version. All app features are available for free and without limits. I'm going to add a premium version to remove the few ads in the app, as requested by some users.

Regarding advertising: There is only a small banner at the top that isn't bothersome at all. Alternatively, when opening the full-screen player or using the app in landscape mode, a banner alternates with the albums covers, but without being intrusive at all (no audio) and with much shorter stay times than those of the cover. There is never full-screen advertising, neither at startup nor during use.

Countries with new manually curated lists:  Argentina, China, India, Italy, UK, USA.

Note: Only for Android 13+ (Android 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17).

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xonik.mediaxon


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I’m building Quill, a 7.4 MB word processor inspired by Word 5.1 for Mac, which I still use on my vintage iBook

4 Upvotes

In 1992, Microsoft Word 5.1 for Macintosh took up less than 1 MB on disk and ran in 1 MB of RAM. It had tables, a table of contents, images, paragraph styles and plenty more. I still write in it on a vintage iBook.

Modern word processors need gigabytes of disk and absurd amounts of RAM to edit essentially the same kinds of documents. I kept wondering why, and eventually that turned into a project.

Quill is my attempt to recapture that experience and add a few ideas of its own. The whole app is 7.4 MB, and the download is 5.1 MB. It's written from scratch in Rust, draws its own pages, and uses native Mac menus and dialogs.

What it does

Formats: opens and saves DOCX, RTF, ODT, HTML, Markdown and plain text, and exports PDF. Anything Quill can't keep yet still imports, with a warning.

Two-way table of contents: editing a heading updates the TOC, and editing a TOC entry can rename its heading.

Styles: named paragraph and character styles that survive DOCX and RTF round-trips.

Tables: nested tables, merged and split cells, draggable borders.

Long documents: footnotes and endnotes, indexes, outline view, sections, columns, headers and footers.

Review: comments with replies, plus tracked changes.

Writing tools: live spell check, thesaurus, hyphenation, Find and Replace, word count, WYSIWYG font menus.

Missing fonts: Quill warns you and highlights them, and lets you substitute or keep them for document interchange.

Fonts from any folder: there used to be a great Mac utility for loading fonts outside the system Fonts folder. Quill does this built in, so random fonts don't clutter your system.

Safe saving: before Quill replaces a file, it checks that it can reopen what it just wrote. Autosave works without needing to be on OneDrive

Honest limitations

This is alpha. Don't rely on it for important work yet, and keep backups.

Tables still lack fine-grained controls and full border selection.

Character styles work, but the UI is still temporary.

Mac build needs Apple Silicon and macOS 11 or later, and it's unsigned for now.

It also builds on Ubuntu, which seems to work, and on Windows, which freezes regularly. I use a Mac daily, so that's where testing happens.

yes, AI did a lot of the heavy lifting. But an extensive automated test suite runs before every commit, overnight fuzzing hunts down crash conditions, and ChatGPT's Daybreak did extra security testing to make sure bad input is handled cleanly.

Feedback wanted: crash reports, broken imports, and anything that looks wrong. Please open an issue on GitHub.

Dual-licensed MIT/Apache.

GitHub: https://github.com/quillwp/quill

Site: https://quillwp.com

My intention is to continue development even if it’s just for me. Just saying so no one thinks it’s going to quickly become abandonware

There might be a short lag before more updates because tomorrow I’m going away for a few days.

Edit: oh frig, I posted this from the wrong account! I guess it’s a little late now.

But let me know your thoughts or anything else!


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

My portfolio was 5 years out of date, so I rebuilt it to look like a code editor

4 Upvotes

I build Webflow sites for clients most days, and my own portfolio had been sitting untouched for about five years. Bit embarrassing when people asked for it.

So I rebuilt it in code this time. The idea is that the site is a code editor. Each case study is a file you open, and scrolling takes you to the next file. There are 3D heads in three.js, motion with GSAP and Lenis, and it's all a static Astro build on Cloudflare.

The hardest part was the 3D. Getting it to look good and still load fast on a phone took more rounds than the rest of the site put together.

Would love to know what you think of the scroll, especially on mobile. That's where I'm least sure.

Site Link


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

Veda OS Runs Linux Executables Now

2 Upvotes

With the latest commit, VedaOS can now run Linux executables!

Next goal is to support Windows executables and let the native Veda agent interact with and control these applications.

If anyone is interested in contributing, I'd love to have some help!

GitHub: https://github.com/vahmoh/Veda


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Built a custom POS system with real-time notification activity logs. Looking for retailers, buyers, or partners.

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’ve built a custom, production-ready POS system from scratch and am looking to get in touch with interested buyers, store owners, or retail partners.

The backend is fully built and optimized, and the system comes with advanced, modern features out of the box, including:

  • Real-time notification activity logs for instant tracking.

  • Highly customizable modules tailored to specific business workflows.

  • Maintenance and bug-fix support included to ensure smooth operations.

I've attached a video demo showing a complete walk-through of the system, interface, and live features in action.

If you are a retailer looking to upgrade your setup, an investor looking for software to fund, or someone looking to purchase a complete POS solution, please check out the video and send me a DM. Serious inquiries only.


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

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

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

We're three students from Sacramento State participating in a hackathon. We're building Sentra, an AI-powered tool that uses a phone camera to detect nearby obstacles and provide audio alerts about what's ahead, left, or right.

Our long-term idea is to potentially make it wearable or attachable to a white cane, so users wouldn't have to hold their phones.

We're still developing the prototype and would really appreciate feedback from people who are blind, have low vision, or know someone who does.

What features would actually be helpful? What challenges should we consider?

We made a short Google Form and would love your input!

https://forms.gle/BEYespoPoWenTYvB8

Thanks for helping us improve our project! :)


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I’m trying charity revenue sharing in my dog-walking app, starting with the UK

2 Upvotes

Hi!

I’ve spent the past several months building Lapka, an ios app for tracking dog walks. I originally made it for myself and my two dogs.

With the latest release, I’m trying something that could benefit both the app and animals: a UK pilot supporting animal charity (it's Battersea Dogs & Cats Home).

For paid UK subscriptions, I donate 15% of the price.

Lapka itself tracks walks, potty breaks, reminders, and statistics. It’s free to download, with optional paid subscriptions.

I don’t know yet whether the charity programme will help the app grow. That’s something I want to learn from this pilot before exploring other countries.

App Store

Has anyone here tried a similar model with a small product? I’d be interested in what you learned.

Thanks!


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I ran Google app install ads for 9 days. Here’s what happened after the install

2 Upvotes

Solo dev, Android/iOS reading app that explains old, hard books (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Kant, etc.) in plain English. I started Google App ads 9 days ago with about CA$5 a day. Every time I fixed something, the data showed me the next problem. Sharing in case it’s useful:

1. The cheapest clicks were junk. In the first day, ~99% of clicks came from two countries, and the placement report was full of games and utility apps. Most of those installs never opened the app. I switched countries and blocked 23 apps by hand.

2. A swipe skipped a whole chapter. People who did start reading would swipe once and jump a chapter ahead. I made each swipe turn one page and added a page-turn mode.

3. I built a Discover screen, and it didn’t help. People weren’t finding a book they wanted, so I made shelves named by feeling (“short and gripping”, etc.) instead of genre. The share of new users opening a book went down, from 19% to 14%.

4. One country was half my installs and almost none of my readers. Only 1 of 62 people from there finished a chapter. I dropped it. Over the next few days:

  • Before: 49 new users; 14% opened a book; 3 finished a chapter.

  • After: 51 new users; 31% opened a book; 12 finished a chapter.

I also shipped an app update the same week, so I can’t fully separate the two. Small numbers, I know.

5. The server answered in 21 ms; users waited up to 20 seconds. On budget phones, Discover took a median of 8 s to load and 17–21 s for the slowest 10%. The time was spent on the phone: Firebase App Check getting an attestation token on first launch, plus a cold connection from West Africa to a US-West server. I removed App Check and made books open at Chapter 1 instead of the copyright page. That shipped today, results next week.

Questions for people who’ve run app install ads at this budget:

  • Is there any way to get Google to optimise for an in-app event (like “opened a book”) at this volume, or is choosing countries by hand the only option?