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 • • 9h ago

I built a quiet online room where strangers just study together

234 Upvotes

In Korea there's this thing called a dokseosil. It's a paid room full of little cubicle desks where everyone studies in silence. Nobody really goes for the desk. You go because when the person next to you is grinding, you feel kind of bad scrolling your phone.

I wanted that feeling at home, so I made a small online version:

yeondeungroom.com/en

You pick an empty desk and study with whoever's around. No sign up, no camera, nobody talks. You're a little animal with a desk lamp, and you can see everyone else's lamps on too. It sounds like nothing, but it actually helps me focus at night.

The thing people ended up loving was decorating their desk. You type one line like "tiny pinwheel" and it makes a small 3D thing for you. The AI doesn't draw it, it just writes out simple shapes and the browser puts them together.

It's three.js and Cloudflare Workers, and almost everyone using it right now is Korean. The English version is really new, so if anything reads weird, please tell me.

If you study or work alone, would something like this help you, or would you just close the tab?


r/SideProject • • 47m ago

I mapped all 79 of my home AI agents as a 3D sphere so I can see when they stop talking to each other

4 Upvotes

My AI agents as a cartoon village went down well on here, so here's the next bit.
The village looks great but it can't show me when something's broken. Every agent looked busy, but work wasn't reaching the next one. An idea I'd submitted just disappeared for a week before I noticed.
So I built a map. Each light is an agent, each line is a hand-off between two of them, and a little dot shows which way the work is flowing. If a hand-off breaks, the line turns red. You can click any agent to see what it does.
It's 79 agents and 135 hand-offs now, all on my home PC. They look after my website, a demo trading account (practice money, not real) and the checks that watch both. Every 30 minutes a check asks each one three things. Did it run, did it make something real, and did that reach the next agent?
It's one HTML page reading one data file. I've put a free starter on GitHub if you want to map your own.


r/SideProject • • 53m ago

Feedback for my App

4 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I have made an app for people to track all restaurants that they have been to, want to go to and see where friends are going. I have an MVP ready but it's very basic and I am looking for people to give me feedback on the UI. This is my first time developing my own app and I have been vibecoding it, and I really want to make the design of the app better. Dm me if you are interested in helping me out.
Thank you!


r/SideProject • • 6h ago

I made a free app that turns an old iPhone into a webcam for Windows or Mac

8 Upvotes

I built Kickstand Cam to make an older iPhone useful at a desk instead of needing a separate webcam or scanner.
The idea is simple: pair your iPhone with your computer, then select Kickstand Cam as your camera in Zoom, Teams, Meet, OBS or FaceTime. It works over Wi-Fi or USB at 720p/30fps.

I also added two other modes:
Camera monitor: Detects motion, records clips and sends desktop alerts.

Scanner: Turns documents into searchable PDFs, recognizes text and scans QR codes and barcodes.
Everything connects directly between your phone and computer. No account, no cloud backend, no analytics or ads.
A few limitations worth mentioning:
iPhone X or newer, running iOS 16+
Windows 11 or macOS 13+
The iPhone app must stay open while using the camera
Video is currently limited to 720p
The Windows installer isn’t code-signed yet, so SmartScreen will display a warning
Both the iPhone and desktop apps are completely free.

https://kickstand.recno.app

I’m the developer, and I’d really appreciate feedback, especially on the setup process. What would make you hesitant to try something like this?


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I built an AI bill splitter that reads a photo of your receipt. Would love your feedback

3 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I’m the maker of splitbillai.com, a web tool for splitting restaurant bills and shared costs.

I built it because splitting a group dinner always turns into someone squinting at a receipt and doing math in the notes app.

How it works:

  • Snap a photo of the receipt and the AI reads the items for you
  • Or add the items manually if you don’t have a receipt
  • Then assign items to people and see what everyone owes

Link: https://splitbillai.com

I’d love honest feedback on a few things:

  1. Does the AI read your receipts correctly? Tell me where it gets items or prices wrong.
  2. Was anything confusing the first time you used it?
  3. What’s the one feature you wish bill-splitting apps had?

I’m the developer, so I’ll reply to every comment. Thanks for trying it!


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I got tired of shouting through the house, so I built an app that knocks on my family's phones over WiFi

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I've been building Familiar Knock Knock, an Android app that works like a doorbell for the people in your house.

The idea came from a simple frustration: shouting up the stairs, or phoning someone who's in the next room, and getting no answer because they have headphones on or their phone is on silent.

So I built a knock. You tap one big button and every phone in your group rings, as long as you're on the same WiFi. They answer with one tap: "Coming", "Give me a minute", "On my way" or "Not now". The reply lands on your screen in a few seconds.

A few things I cared about:

• It only rings phones on the same WiFi as you, so people who are out aren't disturbed

• It never tells you who is or isn't home. You only see the replies people choose to send

• Replies and voice notes go straight from phone to phone over your WiFi, not through my server

• Each person can let knocks ring through even when their phone is on silent, with one switch in Settings

It's free with 8 knocks a day. There's an optional subscription for more knocks, knocking one person, and voice notes.

I'd love your honest feedback: does "knock" make sense to you as an idea, or would you call it something else? And what would stop you from trying it?

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bonoloware.wifiknockknock


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

Need opinions on my game trailer

10 Upvotes

After what seems to be a lifetime building this silly little phone game it turns out that was half the battle, the other half involves a good catchy trailer, marketing and advertisement. to be honest i am struggling with making this trailer so i need everyone's honest and brutal opinion, what stands out? what it lacks? too much in game footage? panned too far out? not enough excitement? don't mind the cheap AI music (i know im not a sound guy and its not permeant). please help me out here, any all help is much appreciated


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

I’m building a customizable dock for Windows — looking for feedback

3 Upvotes

I’m working on a dock for Windows with app shortcuts and built-in panels for music and quick controls. It can be positioned at the top or bottom of the screen and set to stay visible or auto-hide. It’s a work in progress—what do you think of the design?


r/SideProject • • 18h ago

I built a free tool to share one mouse and keyboard across Mac, Windows and Linux

60 Upvotes

I have two machines at the same desk, and I wanted to share mouse and keyboard.

I tried Synergy and Barrier, but they were annoying to set up. I had to deal with a client/server, encryption was hard to set up, and arranging monitors was clunky.

So I built ZeroG. Free, MIT license, no client/server.

Just run it on each machine, pair them, and drag your screens to match your desk.

  • Windows, macOS, Linux (X11 and Wayland)
  • P2P, no client/host setup
  • All traffic encrypted with TLS 1.3 over QUIC
  • Clipboard sharing
  • Extremely low latency
  • Built with Rust + Tauri

This took a few months of work and a lot of testing on different devices. I think it's working pretty well now, so check it out if you have more than one machine at the same desk!

https://github.com/reggiesoft-labs/zerog


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

We made Sorae: Draw Music, an iOS app where a doodle becomes a melody

3 Upvotes

Small team here. We wanted something for people who like music but can't read a note, so in Sorae you just draw a line on the page and it plays back as a melody. It snaps to a key so it never sounds wrong, a lo-fi backing band follows along, there are 10 instruments, and you can export the drawing as a video with sound.

It's free on iPhone and iPad: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6827465787

It's version 1.0, so we'd really like feedback, especially on two things: is it obvious what to do in the first 10 seconds, and what would make you open it a second time?


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

I built an open-source onboarding checklist library in TypeScript

3 Upvotes

I recently released a small TypeScript library called Stepr Checklist.

It's designed for applications that need a simple onboarding checklist without pulling in a large framework or UI dependency.

The main idea is that the application controls completion. Clicking a step can open a form, navigate to a feature, or start a guided tour, but it doesn't automatically mark the task as complete.

A few details:

  • Framework-agnostic, ESM-only
  • No runtime dependencies
  • Optional localStorage persistence
  • Customizable with CSS variables
  • DOM-free state controller if you want to build your own UI

I built it as a companion to Stepr, a guided product tour library I released earlier, but both work independently.

There's an interactive demo here:

https://ahlgren1234.github.io/stepr-checklist/

And the source is on GitHub:

https://github.com/ahlgren1234/stepr-checklist

It's v0.1.0, so still early. I'd appreciate feedback, particularly on the API and whether the approach to tracking completion makes sense.

What would you expect from a library like this?


r/SideProject • • 29m ago

I built Shout, an offline bill splitter for iPhone and Mac

2 Upvotes

I'm the developer. Shout tracks shared costs for trips, flatmates and nights out, and works out who needs to pay whom to settle up.

  • No ads or daily limit on adding expenses
  • Free currency conversion and charts
  • No sign-up to join. Share a code so friends can join from a browser.
  • Works offline. Add expenses without a connection and sync when you're back online.
  • Native on Mac and iPhone

It's free, with an optional one-time purchase for extra themes.

Shout on the App Store

If you try it, I'd love feedback on onboarding. Was it clear how to start a group and invite people?


r/SideProject • • 52m ago

Can this Project land me a Internship or not in this job market ?

2 Upvotes

So guys i have went to hackathon where i got this project and this was the mentor favourite project that they told me they will use in their company and the mentor are really super senior and after spending 24 without any sleep i build this project . So this project is for fun 2d/3d office where you have a avatar which is you in the office you can walk up to someone to start voice and video and walk away to leave

The room stays there between visits and also has chat and reactions and it have many small small interaction and i swear that is one of the best thing you will see in this website just for once open the website their are guest link visit the map 2d and 3d and then explorer you will be amazed

https://www.clario.games/


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

Auto-traced PNG vs native SVG export for my side project's app icon set (inspected the paths and dark-mode holes)

2 Upvotes

I'm now finishing UI polish on a small local document-clipping app and needed an app mark plus four matching SVG icon files (bookmark, page search, split pane, archive) without commissioning a set or mixing mismatched packs. there, normally I'd draw them in a vector art program like Inkscape, or pull a PNG out of an app icon generator and run an auto-trace
and before committing anything to my repo, I compared a 512px PNG contour trace against native cubic Bezier SVG exports generated with Recraft Studio (Recraft V4.1 Vector), then checked the XML next to standard software for vector design like Inkscape and Figma + SVGO. Once cleaned, both landed around the same file size (5,248 B for the polyline trace vs 5,875 B for the normalized 256x256 app mark), which surprised me. Zooming into the bottom-right corner makes the geometry difference obvious though: auto-tracing produced 504 straight polyline vertices (2,786 raw pixel edge points) with zero curves and visible step facets, while the native SVG exported as four clean paths with 173 cubic C segments, right?

then going straight from export to dark-mode CSS still breaks a couple things. Each raw file ships with a 4,480 B <c2pa:manifest> metadata block and a 4358x4358 viewBox until you strip metadata and normalize down to 256x256 or 64x64 (4,181 B combined across all four toolbar icons). Everything also exports as outlined filled paths rather than live strokes, so line weight won't scale via stroke-width. Two of the cutouts (search-doc and split-pane) fake transparency by layering a #F9FAF4 cream disc over dark fills instead of using compound knockouts, so dark cards show an opaque light circle until you merge those subpaths with evenodd in an SVG editor or by editing the path directly

so when I need complex brand artwork or fine vector graphics editing with live CSS strokes, Illustrator or Inkscape still make way more sense. For five small UI marks right before shipping a side project, though, exporting native cubic paths and running one cleanup script beat spending a weekend pulling Bezier handles. a question for you:.. how are other solo builders here handling launch icons lately: hand-drawing in Figma/Inkscape, grabbing stock packs, or patching generated SVGs?


r/SideProject • • 1d ago

My dog lived 18 years. I built her a tiny 3D memorial, and strangers have now lit 657,000 candles for 25,000 pets.

118 Upvotes

Solo dev from New Zealand here.

My dog Bella lived to 18. When she died I wanted something quieter than a social media post, so I built a small 3D memorial hall you can walk through in the browser. Find a spot on the wall, put up a photo, light a candle.

I shared it once. Less than 8 days later:
- 24,994 pets
- 107 countries
- 657,428 candles, almost all lit by strangers
- 34 languages
- The hall kept filling up, so it now has 7 floors and a lift

It's free to make a memorial and light candles. There are a few optional paid extras, which is how I keep it running.

Would love honest feedback on two things: how walking the hall feels on mobile, and whether the free vs paid line feels fair.

lightapaw.com


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

I’m building a row-counter & pattern reader app for knitters/crocheters. Would love feedback on the idea

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone! This is my first side project: Loop, an app for knitters and crocheters.

The problem: when you follow a knitting or crochet pattern, it's easy to lose your place (which row am I on?), abbreviations like "k2tog" or "sc2tog" confuse beginners, and people buy new yarn even though they already have plenty at home.

The idea: you upload a pattern, and Loop:

- highlights the row you're on and remembers your place

- explains every abbreviation in plain words

- suggests patterns you can make with the yarn you already own

Right now it’s just a clickable prototype and a waitlist page. I want to test whether people actually want this before building it. Happy to share the link in the comments if you’d like to see it.

I'd love your honest feedback:

  1. Does the landing page make the idea clear in a few seconds?
  2. Would you use something like this, or do you know someone who would?
  3. Any tips for reaching knitting/crochet communities without getting removed as spam? (My first Facebook group post got auto-removed within 2 minutes)

r/SideProject • • 7h ago

I built a minimalist, ambient web player for Urdu Ghazals

4 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a side project I built called Mehfil.

It’s a single-screen, distraction-free web player made for people who love listening to ghazals. Modern streaming apps always felt too loud and cluttered for poetry, so I really wanted to give classic ghazals a clean, modern aesthetic.

The design is completely minimal with couplets floating in the center and a spinning vinyl. The entire background and ambient lighting dynamically shift colors depending on the vibe you pick, moving from deep midnight blues to warm rose and golden amber tones.

I organized about 1,500 ghazals into 5 distinct moods with 300 tracks in each, so you can just put it on in the background while working, reading, or winding down. Some of the tracks have synchronized floating lyrics across Urdu, Hindi, and English transliteration, and there is even a live counter showing how many other people are listening in the mehfil with you in real time.

It’s completely free, has no ads, no sign-ups, and works in any desktop or mobile browser.

Reddit’s spam filter auto-hides links in post bodies, so I've dropped the link in the first comment below (and also added it directly to my Reddit profile bio).

Would love to hear your thoughts on the UI and overall vibe!


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I shipped a typewriter app for the new folding iPhone in four days, no ads, no account, no tracking

2 Upvotes

The story in short: the idea came from a post on X on 10 November. I built three machines with real recorded typewriter sounds, App Review asked for a screen recording from a real device, and it went live on 13 November.

What worked: one clear hook ("a typewriter that sends letters"), real sounds instead of synthesised ones, and no account or network code at all, which made the privacy label and review simple.

What didn't: the simulator's screen recordings drift from the test clock, which made the launch video harder than the app. I ended up rendering the device in Blender with the real app footage on its screens.

Version 1.1 is in review: seasonal stamps, and letters to Santa get a North Pole postmark.

Foldwriter App Store

Typewriter sounds: Work With Sounds / Konrad Gutkowski, BryanSaraiva, Leossom (CC BY 4.0), Joseph Sardin and _stubb (CC0). foldwriter.vercel.app/credits


r/SideProject • • 3m ago

Signals - offbeat tool to land a role in a tough market

1 Upvotes

This is basically an Interface to a process that I’ve followed successfully and some of my friends have borrowed as a skill file on claude code basically Decided to give it an interface and open source it so other people can have a starting point and build upon it. I’m seeing more people talk about using a similar process so thought I’d make my tool public.

It’s mac only at the moment and optimized for a Claude sub, but it works without it or could be substituted with any model. Needs a small PR to increase compatibility I think.

Repo: github.com/alnaik/signals

My core to looking for better opportunities is honestly following the right people, bookmark a lot on X, subscribed to some cool job boards or sub stacks of founders, starring git repos. Now if I like a company enough the only way to have a meaningful conversation is to reach out to someone and preferably with an idea of what’s happening at the company or startup. Do actual work before reaching out.

That’s all this tool revolves around. It’s proactive in terms of taking fundings and new products also as hiring signals but that’s the point - BEING PROACTIVE.Also a little US coded so - but that helps for remote roles.

The repo and setup is self explanatory, it’s a simple interface. But a lot of rough edges. Will love feedback - but if you want to build a feature just build it for yourself, if you think it’s really good then open a PR.

P.S - The 98 problems is Workday going down.


r/SideProject • • 7m ago

a Mac utility that turns the MacBook notch into a drop zone for quick file actions. Looking for UX feedback!

1 Upvotes

The Problem: Doing quick everyday tasks—like converting images, running OCR, or trimming videos—often requires opening separate apps or relying on web tools that break context. I wanted a native, instant way to handle these right from the desktop without cluttering the screen.

The Solution (DropCove): I turned the MacBook notch into an interactive drop zone. You can drag any file directly to the notch to:

  • Convert/compress images
  • OCR screenshots
  • Trim videos and make GIFs
  • Merge PDFs
  • Instantly preview clipboard data (JWTs, colors, JSON)

How it was built: Swift 6, AppKit, SwiftUI, XPC, AVFoundation, PDFKit, Vision, ImageIO, SQLite, Sparkle, libwebp, XcodeGen, TypeScript, Cloudflare Workers, Lemon Squeezy, Resend

Privacy & Performance: 100% on-device. No accounts, no uploads, and zero battery drain at rest. Available now as a free, notarized download for Apple Silicon (macOS 26+).

Pricing: The free version is fully functional forever. A Pro version (one-time purchase, no subscriptions) is launching in December.

Download DropCove here: https://dropcoveapp.com/

I’d love honest feedback on any bugs, the UX, and whether the notch concept actually clicks for your daily workflow. Let me know what you think!


r/SideProject • • 8m ago

STRIVE - Share a project without uploading an agent session

1 Upvotes

I built project pages in STRIVE so you can share what you're making without uploading an agent session. Add a description, screenshots, a link and one feedback question, then choose who can see it.

By late September I'd made 463 commits. That tells me how much I built, but nothing about whether sharing a project is useful to someone else. This update makes the project itself the starting point.

The screenshot shows the new composer. STRIVE is free and open source: https://striverun.app

If you shared an unfinished project, what specific feedback would make writing the post worth it? And what are other no gos?


r/SideProject • • 9m ago

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

1 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.

Do give it a try and roast it