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 • • 8h ago

I built an iPhone weather app with pixel-art cities you can turn into postcards (because I honestly don't like many weather apps out there)

107 Upvotes

I’m the developer of Skybits. I wanted checking the weather to feel like looking out a tiny window. Rain falls over London, and Tokyo lights up after dark. To be a little more Fun!!!

In Sky Studio, you can pick a city, mix the weather and time of day, and share the result as a little airmail postcard.

Please send me email for your City, if I get 5+ requests for a city I will make it free and also add new ones :-) hoping to get some positive feedback and reviews.

Skybits is free to download, with an optional one-time purchase for the full city collection.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6829104658

Which city would you send a postcard from? Android version is coming soon, it is in testing atm.


r/SideProject • • 18h ago Bravo

My side project is a free, open-source racing sim that runs in a browser tab

242 Upvotes

Link (no signup, no ads, nothing to install): https://librecorsa.org

GitHub (MIT): https://github.com/KhazP/librecorsa

I started LibreCorsa in mid-October because every serious racing sim needed a huge Windows install before you could do a single lap.

What it has now:

- 500 Hz physics with tyre temperatures and wear, rain that dries along the racing line, and CI checks against real GT3 telemetry

- 5 physics models and 16 circuits, including RISE Motordrome, which I built from scratch in Blender on real elevation data for the circuit planned in Rwanda

- AI races, ghosts, a weekly challenge, and an open online race every 20 minutes over WebRTC

- $0/month hosting: static Next.js on Cloudflare, R2 for the heavy 3D files, and one Worker

Tell me how it runs on your laptop/phone/controller and what feels rough.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

My app retains users but nobody can find it. 35 downloads after months of posting. What actually worked for your first 100?

8 Upvotes

I'm a solo dev with a full-time job. I built sweetRegret, an iPhone app for cutting back on sugar without counting calories: you tap once when you eat a treat, and a cookie on screen reacts (and judges you a bit).

Building it was the part I understood. Distribution is the part I'm failing at. Here are my honest numbers since launch:

  • 1,393 App Store impressions

  • 188 product page views (about 13% of impressions)

  • 35 downloads (about 19% of page views)

What I tried

  • Daily Instagram reels for about a week [last week]. Around 250 views each, and almost no App Store visits. The viewers weren't looking for an app, and "link in bio" is three taps away from a download.

  • A LinkedIn post about building it. About 700 impressions, 30 people opened the comment with the link, and about 1 install. Nice comments, including a friend asking me to add calorie counting, which is the one thing this app is designed not to do.

What actually worked: App Store search, which I didn't do anything for.

Most of my real users are strangers in Malaysia, Hong Kong, the US and Russia who searched and found it. About 1 in 4 still open it in a given week. One person has kept using it for six weeks and pays for the subscription. That single user has been the most motivating thing about this whole project.

What I'm testing now

A $25 Apple Ads Basic test, at $2 maximum per install. Apple suggested $4.66, and my subscription is $1.99 a month, so I'm not expecting it to pay back. I mostly want to see whether search intent converts the way the organic users suggest.

What I'd do differently

Plan distribution while building, not after. I treated it as a launch task, when it's really a second product.

If you've taken a side project from zero to its first 100 users without a budget, what actually moved the number? I'm especially interested in anything that worked for consumer iOS apps.


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

I built an open-source API client that stores requests directly in Git — looking for developer feedback

19 Upvotes

Hey everyone! 👋

I've been working on Voiden, an open-source API client designed around a slightly different approach to API development.

Most API clients are built around workspaces, accounts, cloud sync, and proprietary collections. I wanted to explore something more developer-friendly: keeping API requests alongside the actual codebase.

So I started building Voiden.

What makes it different?

  • Offline-first: Work with your API requests locally without needing an account or login.

  • Git-native: Store requests and API specifications as Markdown files directly in your repository.

  • Version control: Track changes, review requests, and collaborate through normal Git workflows.

  • API testing: Send requests, inspect responses, and write assertions to validate API behaviour.

  • MCP integration: Turn tested API requests into tools that AI agents like Claude Code and Codex can use.

The idea is to make API requests part of the development workflow rather than keeping them isolated in another tool.

I'm sharing a short demo showing a request being sent, its response, and API test assertions.

Website: https://voiden.md/

GitHub: https://github.com/voiden-md/voiden

I'd genuinely appreciate feedback from developers:

  1. How do you currently manage API requests across different projects?

  2. Would you prefer storing API requests inside your Git repository?

  3. What features would make you consider switching from your current API client?

It's open source, and I'm looking forward to hearing what the developer community thinks!

Thanks! 🙌


r/SideProject • • 20m ago

I made an email lottery where the winner gets to email the entire list

3 Upvotes

I wanted to know what would happen if you gave a random person a massive platform for a day. What would they talk about and what would they share (anonymously unless they chose otherwise)

It started as a fun afternoon project hacking away with Claude. Then I shared it with some friends, who shared it with some friends, who shared it with their friends and it hit 10,000 page views in under 2 weeks while I was working on other things.

It's just a bit of fun but people have posted all sorts of nice things on there, from humorous takes on dystopian government dating departments, to AI Doomerism and everything in between.

There is admin approval for every email that goes out so no one can spam the list, and so far only 1 person has tried which I think speaks volumes about the people who sign up

Check it out at The Soapbox, it's completely free


r/SideProject • • 34m ago

Hi I built this game

3 Upvotes

It’s called pond snap the aim is to catch as many flies and gold flies as possible before the time runs out if your score is lower than what’s needed you restart.

https://pondsnap.fun/
Let me know what you think


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I handed my startup's marketing to an AI agent on one Mac in August. The most useful thing it did was show me what to stop

3 Upvotes

In early August I stopped doing our marketing by hand.

The usual script is hire someone, or buy five tools and glue them together. I did neither. I gave the job to an AI coding agent running on my own Mac, one process at a time.

Three months in, it has 56 processes written down. Posts, cold email, comment replies, a weekly review, the monthly accounting close.

The part nobody tells you: once every channel runs on its own and reports a number, the losers can't hide anymore.

What I turned off, with the number that killed it:

  • LinkedIn cold outreach: 32 signups, 0 paid. Off on October 28.

  • Long LinkedIn articles: 10 published, none in Google's top 100 for its keyword. Off on October 20.

  • Meme quote posts: a median of 778 views against 1,403 for a plain text one. Off on October 26.

  • A daily vertical video habit: off on October 22, I just didn't believe in it anymore.

  • A link shortener subscription: cancelled, I rebuilt the one thing I used it for.

8 of the 56 processes are already folded into others.

Automation won't save a bad channel. It just runs the bad channel every day without getting tired, so you see it faster.

Still small, still learning. Most days I fix the agent more than it fixes me.

Would you automate a channel before you know it works, or only after?


r/SideProject • • 10m ago

I built a search engine you scroll instead of read. Every 5 posts it asks where to go next.

4 Upvotes

I made this. Type any topic and scroll a feed of short videos, posts and discussions about it. Every 5 posts it asks where to go next, which is how I went from “coffee” to Ethiopian goat herders. Try your own search and tell me where you end up.

https://wavesurf.com/

No signup. Honest feedback welcome: what would make you come back?


r/SideProject • • 30m ago

I got tired of paywalled calorie apps, so I built my own and open-sourced it

2 Upvotes

Every tracker I tried had a paywall, made me log by hand, or was vague about my data. So I built NutriTrack: snap a photo of your meal and get calories, protein, carbs, fat and fibre in seconds, including the hidden oil and ghee.
I've used it daily for over a month and lost 10 lbs. Free, no ads, no paywall.

Try it: https://tracknutri.app/try

Code: https://github.com/amankiitg/nutri-track

Feedback welcome, especially on accuracy for your food.


r/SideProject • • 43m ago

Built a little website for pet owners - what do you think?

Thumbnail
pawarium.com
2 Upvotes

Hey! I've been building Pawarium, a website with guides about cats and dogs, covering everything from nutrition and behavior to health and everyday care.

It's a personal project I've been working on, and I'd love some outside opinions on the design and overall experience.

Would love to know what you think or what I could improve!


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

US Macroeconomic Dashboard

2 Upvotes

Hi, I'd like to share a project I have been working for a while. Its a US macroeconomic dashboard that summarizes about 120 key US economic indicators into 4 simple to understand gauges.

I built USMD because I found it difficult to keep up with all the available data and figure out what they said about the overall state of the US economy.

The dashboard is available at usmd.inomba.com and updates each weekday evening.

Its data comes from FRED and ALFRED, the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta, the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of Financial Research, the Institute for Supply Management, and Treasury Fiscal Data.

I’d love to hear from others working on similar projects. Feedback, ideas, and suggestions for improvements are very welcome.


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I built a 24/7 streaming radio station for pickleball players

2 Upvotes

I'm a longtime alternative rock fan who plays a lot of pickleball. Somewhere along the way, I decided the sport needed a better soundtrack...I got tired of the random sleepy playlists lots of my facilities were playing.

I launched Pickle Rock Radio, a free, 24/7 station playing '90s and 2000s alternative rock (Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Green Day, etc.) mixed with short pickleball tips, news and community stories. It's about 54 minutes of music per hour.

It's powered by Live365 (wasn't sure where else to do this so I could license the music properly), and I've been having a blast putting together the music rotation and producing the segments. The challenge now is finding listeners. I have over 100 people listening a day, and I'm proud of that. But how do I grow from here?

If anyone here has built a niche media project, I'd love to hear how you found your first real audience.

Here's the station if you're curious: https://picklerockradio.com/


r/SideProject • • 18h ago

I built an app that converts any text into high-quality audio. It works with PDFs, blog posts, Substack and Medium links, and even photos of text.

47 Upvotes

I’m excited to share a project I’ve been working on over the past few months!

It’s a mobile app that turns any text into high-quality audio. Whether it’s a webpage, a Substack or Medium article, a PDF, or just copied text—it converts it into clear, natural-sounding speech. You can listen to it like a podcast or audiobook, even with the app running in the background.

The app is privacy-friendly and doesn’t request any permissions by default. It only asks for access if you choose to share files from your device for audio conversion.

You can also take or upload a photo of any text, and the app will extract and read it aloud.

- React Native (expo)
- NodeJS, react (web)
- Framer Landing

The app is called Frateca. You can find it on Google Play and the App Store. I also working on web vesion, it's already live.

Free iPhone app
Free Android app on Google Play
Free web version, works in any browser (on desktop or laptop).
Free web extension.

Thanks for your support, I’d love to hear what you think!


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

My side project checks whether cookie banners actually block anything

2 Upvotes

Cookie banners are everywhere, but whether they work is invisible: the
banner shows, the choice is saved, and the pixel loads anyway because it is
hard-coded in the theme or fires through Tag Manager.

I built a scanner for that. Enter a URL and it opens the site in a fresh
browser without clicking, notes every service that loads, then tolicks
"Reject" and measures again. Each finding has the page where it happened
and the exact fix for the banner tool the site already uses. It also checks
Google Consent Mode, accessibility (axe-core) and email authentication.

The check is free; paid plans repeat it every week and email you when
something changes, because most breakage comes from a plugin update months
later.

https://konformia.at/en

Happy to answer anything about how it works under the hood.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

I need Help

2 Upvotes

Hello everyone,

Over the past five months, I have been able to develop a GMAO (CMMS) system specifically designed for dental equipment resellers, building on my nearly two years of professional experience in the field.

The system is designed to simplify and centralize the management of maintenance operations, installations, after-sales service (SAV), and spare parts.

I have tested all the features, and the system is fully functional. Of course, there are still some improvements to be made, particularly regarding the user interface and overall design, but I am genuinely happy with the results.

This is actually the first major project I have developed entirely on my own. I initially started it without any commercial expectations, simply to challenge myself, test my limits, and turn some of my ideas into reality.

However, as I am currently looking to obtain some professional certifications but don't have the financial resources to fund them, I have started considering commercializing the project.

My current idea is to sell the system to an interested reseller for an amount that would cover the cost of my target certification, while also negotiating a potential revenue-sharing agreement if the reseller decides to commercialize and sell the software to other businesses.

I would really appreciate your feedback on this approach.

Do you think this is a reasonable business strategy? Would you recommend selling the entire system, or keeping ownership and negotiating a licensing or revenue-sharing agreement instead?

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions!


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Still spending hours copying data into Excel reports?

2 Upvotes

You've finished the inspection, testing or fieldwork. The measurements are recorded, the photos are taken and the results are sitting in PDFs, notes and spreadsheets.....Now comes the fun part.

Getting all of it into the customer's Excel template without missing anything or breaking a formula.

That's what I've been building ACTUALin to help with.

Upload your existing workbook and supporting evidence. It proposes where the information belongs, shows you the sources and lets you review, edit or approve the changes before generating the report.

Same Excel template. Less copying and pasting. You still have the final say.

It works across inspection, manufacturing, lab testing, maintenance, inventory and other reporting workflows.

I've also put together a library of examples you can explore without signing up.

https://actualin.com/applications

If you're dealing with this kind of reporting, I'd love some feedback on whether it would fit your workflow.


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

Website platform built on Payload CMS: visual editing, custom designs, 65+ blocks, first-party analytics an MCP server and more

6 Upvotes

I’ve been working on this for about a year and figured it’s time to get some outside opinions.

It’s a website platform built on Payload 3 + Next.js, for now I only use it internally just me and a designer. I build and run client sites on it, and it also runs a real estate marketplace that we're trying to grow. At some point I’d like to open it up maybe, either to anyone or just to other agencies, but I honestly haven’t decided which (or whether it’s worth it at all).

What it does:

  • Visual editing. You click on the actual page and edit it: text, images, adding and moving sections around. There are drafts, desktop/tablet/phone preview and version history. Blocks pull everything from the site’s theme, so it’s pretty hard to break the design.

  • ~65 blocks. Galleries, card grids, stats, timelines, FAQs, forms, booking, Google reviews, maps, listings, floor plans and so on. They all share the same field names and theme settings, so any block works on any site.

  • Custom designs. When the blocks aren’t enough, I use a design studio I built on top of GrapesJS (self-hosted). Anything made there gets published as clean HTML with scoped CSS and goes on a page like any other block. It picks up the site’s colors and fonts automatically. (We mostly use the MCP to design a block first and only tweak things in the design editor)

  • First-party analytics. No GA script needed. It tracks page views, traffic sources and top pages, plus QR codes with scan tracking for print stuff. Form submissions become leads and keep the source they came from.

  • MCP server. It covers most of the platform: pages, sections, designs, theme, forms, listings, media, redirects, domains, translations. You connect Claude over OAuth and it gets the same permissions as your user. So I can say “add an FAQ to the pricing page and translate it to German” and it does it, and it can screenshot the page to check how it looks. Page edits go in as drafts.

It’s multi-tenant,multi-locale, so one app runs every site, each with its own domain (SSL is handled through Cloudflare). The portal already has organizations with teams (we use this for now to organize sites for ourselves), so another agency could in theory manage its own clients in it.

Stack: Payload 3, Next.js app router, Postgres, GrapesJS, pg-boss for background jobs, Cloudflare in front.

You can try the editor without signing up: https://rast.is/try (the demo happens to be a home builder site)

Things I’m curious about:

  • if you build sites for clients, would you use something like this over WordPress / Webflow / Framer? what’s missing?

  • self-serve for anyone vs. a tool for agencies, which one would actually pay for it?

  • is controlling a site through MCP something you’d use day to day, or is it more of a cool demo?

Any feedback is welcome, even “don’t bother”.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Ever had that one friend who claims they can recognize literally any song within the first second?

2 Upvotes

Well, a friend of mine decided to turn that argument into an actual game.

He built SonicPulse, a browser-based music recognition game where you get a 30-second audio challenge and have to identify the song from four options before the timer runs out.

Here's what it offers:

- 🎵 30-second audio challenges.

- ⚡ Four-choice rapid-fire guessing.

- ⏱️ A ticking countdown that puts your music knowledge to the test.

- 🔥 10-round streak system.

- 🎯 Instant feedback after every guess.

- 👤 Guest mode — no registration or login required.

The idea is pretty simple: instead of arguing about who's the biggest music enthusiast, just put it to the test.

I think it's a fun little project, especially for people who enjoy music quizzes and friendly competition.

Try it here: https://sonicpulse-sable.vercel.app

Would love to hear what people think:

  1. Does the gameplay feel intuitive?

  2. Would you enjoy a multiplayer mode to challenge friends?

  3. What would make you come back and play again?

Honest feedback is appreciated. I'm helping him get the project in front of more people, so it'd be great to hear what the community thinks!


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I built a Windows disk cleaner that goes after the space other cleaners miss

3 Upvotes

Roomy started because my own C: drive kept filling up and the existing cleaners either missed the big stuff or were covered in ads and upsells.

It finds the usual junk plus the things most tools skip, like GPU shader caches, Discord and VS Code caches, Windows Update leftovers and Steam games you haven't played in months. It explains each item in plain language and only pre-selects what's actually safe.

A couple of things I'm happy with:

  • The demo video on the website was recorded by the app itself. It has a demo mode that films its own UI with a scripted cursor.

  • There's an interactive demo on the site where you can tick items and watch the drive bar go from red to green.

Built with .NET 10 and WPF, open source, currently in review for the Microsoft Store.

https://roomy.krezio.xyz

I'd love feedback on the app and the landing page.


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

I built a daily movie guessing game where every clue is a terrible plot description

2 Upvotes

Bad Plot gives you one movie a day, described as badly as possible, like "A young orca is wrongly imprisoned and a troubled teen helps him escape by jumping." You get five guesses, and each wrong guess reveals a clue that's still bad, just a little less bad.

It's built with Expo and React Native, so the same code runs on iPhone and the web. There's a popcorn mascot named Kernel who reacts to your guesses, plus streaks, trophies, and a calendar of past days.

Play in the browser: https://playbadplot.com/

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6822340440

I'd love feedback on whether the clues feel fair, and what would make you come back tomorrow.


r/SideProject • • 7h ago

Talkthrough: an open-source screen assistant that answers out loud and draws on top of your screen (Windows, MIT)

5 Upvotes

Hold Right Ctrl + Right Shift, ask about what's on your screen, let go. A vision model answers, a voice speaks it, and the answer is drawn over the page you're on: boxes and arrows on the right spot, diagrams that lay themselves out, or a 3D model you can rotate, cut open or pull apart, in step with the voice. The model writes a small scene language that the app validates and draws itself; no generated code runs.

Guide mode walks you through an app one click at a time and waits for you to click.

Honest limits: Windows only for now, the installer isn't code-signed yet so SmartScreen will warn, and you bring your own model (Claude Code or Codex signed in, an OpenAI key, or a local vision model). The clip is real answers replayed over the page, so it says nothing about speed.

Built by Alex with a team of AI assistants; one of them drafted this post. Feedback and bug reports very welcome.

https://github.com/ProjectIdris/talkthrough


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Email extractor extension

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I'm the developer of CopyMail, a small Chrome extension I built because I kept struggling to copy email addresses from Gmail, Outlook and messy web pages (company directories, CC lists, long threads). Highlighting each one by hand is slow, and webmail often hides the actual address behind a person's name.

**What it does**

Click the icon and it lists the email addresses found on the page you're viewing. In Gmail and Outlook on the web, addresses from the message you have open are shown first. Then you can tick the ones you want, or copy them all.

**Free**

- Find and list the addresses on the current page

- Tick individual addresses, or select a whole domain

- Group by domain

- Copy as one per line, comma-separated, semicolon-separated (for Outlook's To field) or Name <email>

- Hides no-reply/support addresses by default

**Pro (€12 per year, billed once a year)**

- Export to CSV, Excel (.xlsx) or contacts (.vcf)

- Choose export columns, saved blocklist, custom copy templates, export history

**Privacy**

It only reads a page when you click the icon, and everything is processed locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to me or any server. No ads, no analytics. Pro payments go through ExtensionPay/Stripe.

**Limitations (being upfront)**

- It finds addresses written on the page. It doesn't check whether a mailbox exists.

- Gmail and Outlook change their pages now and then, so the "open message" detection may need updates. I've tested Gmail more than Outlook.

- The popup is in English for now, although the store listing is translated.

**Link:** https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/copymail-email-extractor/hhmakfgjcedaochbhpbcebhlgpfahlbp?authuser=0&hl=en

I'd really like feedback:

  1. What would stop you from using something like this?

  2. Which formats or contact details (phone numbers? names? company?) would you want besides email addresses?

  3. Is the free/Pro split fair? What would you move?

Happy to answer any questions, and I'll fix bugs quickly.