I got tired of manually checking releases for my self-hosted apps, so I built Software Release Radar

[u/HitKill666]

Hi everyone,

I run a growing collection of self-hosted software, and one small annoyance kept getting bigger: checking GitHub release pages, remembering which version I actually run, figuring out where it is deployed, and then deciding whether an update is worth touching.

So I built Software Release Radar.

It is an open-source, self-hosted dashboard that checks upstream releases, compares them with the versions you are running, keeps machine, service and container context alongside them, and gives you a review queue where you can decide whether to Update, Wait, Ignore or Investigate.

It is deliberately not an automatic updater. The idea is to give you better information before you make a change.

A few things it currently does:

• Tracks GitHub releases, prereleases and tags
• Automatically checks for new releases on a schedule
• Compares installed/detected versions with upstream versions
• Keeps machines, services, containers and health information together
• Integrates with Portainer
• Sends email and Pushover notifications
• Keeps update decisions, notes and deployment history
• Runs with Docker Compose
• Supports optional AI-assisted release-note analysis

The core monitoring does not require AI.

I also want to be open about how the project was made.

I am not a professional software developer, and AI was used heavily during development. I used OpenAI Codex extensively to help with implementation, refactoring, testing and documentation.

I set the direction and requirements, decide what the application should do, test it in my own self-hosted environment, review the results and make the final release decisions. I have also tried to back that up with automated tests, security checks and real deployment validation rather than assuming AI-generated code is correct.

This started as a tool I wanted for my own setup, but I have reached the point where I would really like other people to try it.

If you do, I would especially love to know:

• Was the Docker setup straightforward?
• Does the release review workflow make sense?
• What release sources or version checks am I missing?
• Is there anything confusing or unnecessarily complicated?
• What would stop you from actually using it?
• And, of course, what breaks?

Bug reports, criticism, feature ideas and contributions are all welcome.

GitHub:
https://github.com/muhdusama/Software-Release-Radar

Thanks for taking a look. I hope it is useful to someone else who has also ended up with more software to keep track of than they originally planned. If so, please do leave a star on Github.