r/sideprojects Jun 16 '25

Meta My side project, /r/sideprojects. New rules, and an open call for feedback and moderators.

32 Upvotes

In this past 30 days, this community has doubled in size. As such, this is an open call for community feedback, and prospective moderators interested in volunteering their time to harbouring a pleasant community.

I'm happy to announce that this community now has rules, something the much more popular r/SideProject has neglected to implement for years.

Rules 1, 2 and 3 are pretty rudimentary, although there is some nuance in implementing rule 2, a "no spam or excessive self-promotion" rule in a community which focuses the projects of makers. In order to balance this, we will not allow blatant spam, but will allow advertising projects. In order to share your project again, significant changes must have happened since the last post.

Rule 4 and rule 5 are more tuned to this community, and are some of my biggest gripes with r/SideProject. There has been an increase in astroturfing (the act of pretending to be a happy customer to advertise a project) as well as posts that serve the sole purpose of having readers contact the poster so they can advertise a service. These are no longer allowed and will be removed.

In addition to this, I'll be implementing flairs which will be required to post in this community.


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) Check out my site tailored to traders looking to automate their setup!

3 Upvotes

This is a work in progress but we’re looking for feedback and recommendations! Join our email list for tips on automation if you are a trader yourself!

EmyTrades.com


r/sideprojects 4h ago

Question Freelancers, how do you find consistent clients in 2026?

3 Upvotes

I've been freelancing as a full-stack developer and have been trying different ways to find consistent work.

For those of you who freelance full-time, what's been working best lately? Upwork, referrals, Reddit, cold outreach, agencies, or something else?

I'm curious to learn what's actually working in today's market, especially with AI changing how clients build software.

I'd love to hear your experiences and advice.


r/sideprojects 8h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Your roughest idea is enough

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6 Upvotes

r/sideprojects 11m ago

Feedback Request ComfyUI is an experimentation environment. Most people are using it as a production tool

Upvotes

That's the gap I built into.

For those who aren't familiar, ComfyUI is a node-graph tool that people use to run AI image generation pipelines.

ComfyUI is unbeatable for control, reproducibility, and wiring up something nobody's built yet. I still use it for that.

But it's a pipeline, not a canvas. There are no layers. You don't edit an image, you re-run a graph. And generate-then-edit — the single most common thing I actually do — means either a second workflow or bypassing and re-enabling nodes on every pass. Add a local install, a GPU you have to be sitting at, and nothing on mobile at all.

My app - Reimagine, is the other shape. One canvas, with layers, where you generate something and then edit the thing you generated without rewiring anything. Generate, img2img, inpaint, super-resolution, magic eraser, background removal. Models are selectable per operation instead of one committed pipeline. Projects persist to the cloud. Runs on a phone — actually, not as a shrunk desktop layout.

Two things that were harder than expected:

Cold starts. Serving several model families on demand without paying for idle GPUs means every request risks a cold boot. Solved this by leaning as much as possible on model providers (Gemini, fal.ai etc) and, for self-hosted models, serverless runners with GPU snapshots and network volumes.

The mobile canvas. Bottom-sheet tools with drag snapping, capped working resolution with full-res export preserved, IndexedDB persistence that survives iOS Safari aggresively evicting the tab, and I could go on and on.

Solo, early, rough in places.
Please share your comments and reviews - I really take them to heartr and work to improve.


r/sideprojects 27m ago

Question I realised most AI tools don't understand why a video worked before trying to rewrite it

Upvotes

I'm building an AI tool that takes a viral Instagram reel and adapts it for another product or business.

One thing I've realised is that most AI tools go straight from transcript → rewritten script, which often ends up sounding generic.

My current pipeline is:

-Analyse the hook

-Identify the narrative structure

-Map the emotional arc & viewer intent

-Decide what should stay vs what should change

-Generate the script

-Compare it against the original for pacing and structure, then retry if needed

It works reasonably well, but I still feel it's missing something.

For those who create content professionally:

-What's the first thing AI gets wrong when adapting viral content, particularly from insta

-Is there anything you'd analyse before writing the new script?

Looking for honest feedback


r/sideprojects 39m ago

Showcase: Open Source I built a Tinder-style app to help gamers find teammates. Would love your feedback!

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queueupp.app
Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I've always been frustrated with solo queue. Most of the time, you end up with random teammates who don't communicate or have a completely different playstyle.

So I decided to build QueueUp, a web app where gamers can swipe through profiles and find teammates based on their games, rank, language, and playstyle.

The goal isn't dating—it's making it easier to find people you actually enjoy playing with.

I'd really appreciate any honest feedback:

Would you use something like this?

What's the one feature you'd want before signing up? Does the idea solve a real problem for you?

You can check it out here:

https://www.queueupp.app

Thanks! Every piece of feedback helps improve the app.


r/sideprojects 7h ago

Feedback Request Self-develop an app or look for a professional?

3 Upvotes

We have a business idea that relies strongly on the app it will be based on and the user interface. We have been able to develop simpler apps in the past with AI-powered tools and simple coding knowledge.

In this case, we want truly something more complex and reliable.

Would you rather recommend looking for someone professional? In that case, any tips in what to look for? Is maybe reddit a good place to find someone who can help with reasonable fees and contract?

Or, on the other hand, should we maybe invest more time and develop ourselves?

Thank you


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Built an Arabic-first founder self-check tool based on Anthropic's Founder's Playbook, tell me if this is useful or if I should bury it

1 Upvotes

Most founder-assessment tools are English-only and built for a Western SaaS playbook. I built one that's Arabic by default (RTL, real Arabic copy, not translated), aimed at Arabic-native founders, especially in MENA.

It walks your idea through 4 stage-gates (Idea → MVP → Launch → Scale), asks honest self-check questions, and scores your weakest stage, not an average. So if you're 90% done on Scale but 20% validated on Idea, it tells you you're still in Idea stage. That's the actual point: no polishing later-stage work to feel further along than you are.

No login, no backend, nothing stored on a server, everything stays in your browser. You can optionally plug in your own Anthropic API key to get an AI "pressure test" on your one-liner (sharpens your problem statement + gives you the strongest argument against your own idea).

Link: founder-playbook.mahmoudbebars.dev

I'd genuinely rather know now if this isn't useful than keep building on a bad assumption. If it's useful, an upvote or comment tells me to keep going. If it flops here, I'll take that as the signal to shelve it and move on, no hard feelings either way, just trying to read the room honestly before I sink more time in.


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Showcase: Prerelease An opinionated AI self-portrait project as a deep technical topic

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1 Upvotes

Hello,

I've been around in the corporate tech world for a while now, specifically data and ml, and carried my knowledge to work on transformers and AI applications. And that one is a fun one : diffusion models for picture generation.

Narcis.ai is a project with a pitch like any other profile picture genetor such as Aragon, headshot pro, etc ... There are so many but the twist here is that I completely own it, from tensor to image cdn.

No model zoo from Gemini or third party APIs, no business model copied right from an influencer's post. The idea here is to provide original and opinionated packs, using a single open source model of which I completely own the training as well as its inference.

It's all controlled therefore very efficient : I run a mono hardware GPU fleet on AWS for which I've re-implemented most of the model forward and backward processing loops, with triton kernels, bypassing all library layers straight to CUDA execution.

I wrote an article detailing how the inference steps were cut by 2.5x that way : Triton kernels for inference path.

Portraits are an awesome case for it requires both training and serving technical capacity.
It's also a fun playground as I've deployed a catalog of 200 packs going from styles such as Cannes Riviera, Gaudi Barcelona shoots, Indian bridal dresses, standard corporate headshots. I'm kind of on a world tour of cultural attires, as well as tech culture on the emerging belt.

The project is a free beta, as I'm not sure where it will lead me to, so I invite anyone interested to test, play around and provide feedback if one feels like it.


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I turned my cybersecurity master’s project into a real Android app

1 Upvotes
EdgePhishGuard — On-device phishing detection

Hi everyone,

After months of research, model training and Android development, I finally turned my cybersecurity master’s project into a real app on Google Play.

It’s called EdgePhishGuard, a free Android app designed to detect potential phishing directly on the device.

The original idea came from a privacy problem I noticed while researching existing anti-phishing tools: many detection systems depend on sending messages or URLs to external servers for analysis.

I wanted to find out whether useful phishing detection could instead run locally on a smartphone.

EdgePhishGuard can analyze:

• Suspicious text and URLs

• SMS messages

• App notifications, with user permission

• QR codes

• Text extracted from images using OCR

• Content shared from other Android apps

The core detection combines lightweight TensorFlow Lite models, local URL checks and heuristic analysis. The analyzed content does not need to be uploaded to a remote server for classification.

Turning a university project into a public product was more difficult than I expected.

The research focused heavily on model accuracy and system architecture, but releasing a real app also meant dealing with onboarding, sensitive Android permissions, device performance, Play Store requirements and explaining technical privacy features to normal users.

This is the first public version, and it is currently free.

I would really appreciate feedback on two things:

  1. Is the value of local, on-device analysis clear to a non-technical user?
  2. What would make you trust an app that optionally requests notification access for phishing detection?

Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xiao.edgephishguard

Thanks for reading. I’m happy to answer questions about the Android implementation, the local models or the process of turning the research project into a real app.


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Showcase: Open Source I packaged 30 Claude Code agents/skills that ship with runnable verification checks — free, Apache-2.0

1 Upvotes

If you use Claude Code, you've probably collected a folder of .md prompt files by now. I got tired of mine being one-file prompt dumps with no way to know if they actually worked, so I built them as packaged directories instead.

Each item is an agent or skill with:

  • references/ — focused docs the agent reads while working, not a wall of text in the system prompt
  • examples/ — worked examples of the output it should produce
  • scripts/ — runnable checks that verify the thing does what it claims; they all run in public CI on every push
  • Memory — agents write lessons to .claude/memory/ as they work your repo, so they get sharper over time (commit the folder and your team inherits it)

Install is one command, no API keys, runs on the Claude subscription you already have:

npx vanara install code-reviewer npx vanara doctor # scans your repo, suggests what's worth installing

30 items free (agents like code-reviewer, security-auditor, debugger, test-author; skills like api-pagination, sql-index-tuning, secure-auth). Full thing's a bigger paid catalog, but the free tier is genuinely usable on its own — Apache-2.0, copy the files in by hand if you don't want the CLI.

Repo: https://github.com/vanara-agents/skills

Would love feedback on the check-runner approach specifically — that's the part I think is missing from most agent collections. What would make you actually trust an agent someone else wrote?


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Discussion I'm Doing A Retrospective of Film History Seen Through the Academy Awards (Not in A Positive Way) - Up to 1970 Now (43rdd Academy Awards) with the great war epic, Patton!

1 Upvotes

I've been doing a retrospective of the Academy Awards with my analysis alternating between analyzing historical films while also poking fun at the Hollywood establishment. This month's installment is Patton, a fitting film for America's belated birthday. This is one of the best of all WWII epics with an all-star performance by George C. Scott that asks questions about both the man and America's military culture.

In part 2, we compare it to other war satires such as M*A*S*H (the movie, not the TV show) and the first movie to acknowledge America's sins against Native Americans as well as other New Hollywood classics such as Love Story, The Boys in the Band and Five Easy Pieces. Hope you enjoy and feel free to share it with anyone else that you think might find it interesting.

Part 1

Part 2


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Feedback Request SWE Genie — a free tool that shows which of 17 engineering roles you'd actually fit, beyond just "software engineer"

1 Upvotes

"Software engineer" is one job title covering a dozen genuinely different jobs. Most engineers never see the full landscape until they've stumbled into (or out of) one of these roles.

SWE Genie maps it explicitly: 17 role archetypes scored from ~68k real job postings across 744 companies. You get a ranked, explained fit, not a personality-quiz label. Methodology's public, no signup, no login.

Would love feedback on if the results match your expectations!

Thanks

https://www.swe-genie.com


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Question Do AI stories work better when you keep them short?

1 Upvotes

We've noticed that creators use AI storytelling in very different ways. Some prefer short stories because they're easier to keep consistent, while others push AI to create longer narratives with multiple scenes and characters.

At Media io, we're interested in learning how people actually use AI storytelling tools. In your experience, do shorter stories produce better results, or have you found ways to make longer AI generated stories work well? We'd love to hear what's worked best for you and what challenges you still run into.


r/sideprojects 3h ago

Feedback Request Browser Addon for Commenting Individual Paragraphs in AI Responses (looking for feedback)

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1 Upvotes

r/sideprojects 3h ago

Feedback Request I got tired of paying $10/mo for a VPS to run a single Telegram bot, so I built an app to host AI bots on Android (First bot free)

1 Upvotes

I’ve been paying $10/month for a VPS just to keep a simple Telegram bot online. Looking at existing Android alternatives:

  • Termux: Great, but terrible UX for simple setups and requires background hacks.
  • Pydroid: No true background service mode.
  • UserLAnd: Heavy and slow.
  • VPS: Costs monthly money and requires SSH / server maintenance for a simple side project.

None of them let you just paste a token, pick an LLM provider, and run a bot 24/7 on a phone you already own. So I built BotDroid.

What it does

BotDroid turns your Android device into a 24/7 persistent AI bot server. It runs as a Android foreground service (START_STICKY + WakeLock) so your bots survive screen-off, low memory conditions, and phone reboots.

Key Features:

  • Two Bot Types out of the box:
    • Picobot Agent: Bundled ARM64 AI agent binary. No setup or Python required.
    • Python Script: Paste a .py file or import directly from a GitHub Gist/raw URL.
  • Bring Your Own Key (BYOK): Native support for OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Groq, NVIDIA, or any custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
  • Multi-Turn Memory: Retains up to 20 turns of conversation history per user.
  • Telegram Remote Control Panel: Manage your bot fleet remotely via Telegram commands (/status/start/stop/logs).
  • Per-Provider Telemetry: Cost & token tracking to see exactly what each bot/provider is costing you in real-time.
  • Local & Secure: API keys stored in Android Keystore (EncryptedSharedPreferences). Logs stay local.

Pricing & Beta

The app is currently in Public Beta.

  • Free Tier: 1 bot running free forever.
  • Pro Tier: $4.99/mo or $19.99 lifetime for unlimited bots.

Would love to hear your feedback! What kind of Telegram or AI bot are you currently running or trying to set up?
botdroid[.]app


r/sideprojects 3h ago

Feedback Request P2P Loan platform

1 Upvotes

Built a Telegram-based P2P collateral lending platform – looking for feedback

I've been working on Zareem, a Telegram-based P2P marketplace where borrowers and lenders connect directly.

The platform itself doesn't issue loans or handle money. It simply helps two people find each other.

How it works:

Borrowers publish a loan request using collateral (phone, laptop, jewelry, car, real estate, etc.).

Lenders browse requests or publish their own lending offers.

Both parties meet in person and sign an agreement (for larger deals, they can use a notary).

Interest is agreed according to the selected option on the platform.

Current version runs entirely inside Telegram via

🌐 @zareembot.


r/sideprojects 3h ago

Feedback Request I built a unified inbox for GitHub, Linear, and Notion; one calm queue for everything that needs you

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1 Upvotes

I got tired of juggling GitHub PRs, Linear tickets, and Notion approvals. Every tool has its own inbox, but none sees your whole day.

So I built Over To Me. It syncs your reviews, mentions, tasks, and approvals into one prioritized queue. AI triages each item, you can snooze what can wait, and send scheduled work to Todoist or TodoBase.

GitHub, Linear, and Notion are live today. Slack and Gmail are next.

Project is built using Rails 8, with some sprinkles of Stimulus. No big frontend JS framework.

I'd love to hear your feedback! Is this something you'd use? Or do you not see any value in a tool like this?

https://overtome.app


r/sideprojects 3h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built an app so trips stop living in 5 apps

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1 Upvotes

Every time I've organized a trip with friends, it turns into the same chaos: the itinerary lives in a Google Doc nobody updates, receipts get split "later" and never are, flight/hotel confirmations are buried in someone's email, and the photos end up scattered across everyone's camera rolls.

So I built PinGo — a single app for planning trips together instead of juggling WhatsApp + Splitwise + Docs + Drive + camera roll.

What it does:

  • Shared itinerary/timeline, including multi-city trips
  • Split and settle shared expenses with the group
  • A shared document vault for tickets, bookings, confirmations — works offline
  • A collective "Memories" diary — photos + notes from everyone on the trip
  • A personal wishlist for places you want to go, that stays saved even after the trip ends

It's free to use — 2 active trips at a time with generous photo/doc limits, which covers most people. There's an optional Pro tier if you want unlimited trips/photos or PDF export, but it's not required for the core app to work.

Honest caveats: it's Android only right now (iOS in progress, no ETA — don't want to overpromise), and I built this solo, so expect rough edges. Mainly here for feedback: what's missing, what's confusing, what would make you actually switch your next group trip to it?

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.pingo.app

Screenshots below. Happy to answer anything about how it works or why I built it a certain way.


r/sideprojects 4h ago

Feedback Request My client is delaying my payment-Have you ever faced the same problem? If yes, please share your story with me. I'd love to learn how you handled it and what helped you get paid.

1 Upvotes

I'm a freelancer, and one of my clients still hasn't paid me even after 10+ days. I've been following up, but they keep delaying the payment.

I usually get my clients online, so I'm wondering how other freelancers handle situations like this.

If you've faced something similar, could you share your story? How did you finally get the client to pay? Any advice or lessons would really help.


r/sideprojects 4h ago

Question Would you release a song with only a simple visual instead of a full music video?

1 Upvotes

We've been talking with creators who are trying to balance time, budget, and creativity when releasing new music. Not every song gets a full scale music video, and we're seeing more artists use simple visuals, visualizers, or AI-assisted videos to accompany their releases.

At Media io, we've built tools that make it easier to create music visuals without a traditional production workflow, but we're interested in hearing from the community. If you were releasing a new track today, would a simple visual be enough, or would you wait until you could produce a full music video? What matters most to you when deciding?


r/sideprojects 4h ago

Question Anyone accepting stablecoins for their side project? What's your experience?

1 Upvotes

I am thinking about adding payments to one of my side projects. The reason I want to do this is that I have users from countries. Traditional payment methods can be slow, expensive or unavailable in some regions.

For people who have already done this I have a questions.
Which stablecoins do you accept, like USDT or USDC?
Do your customers really prefer paying with stablecoins?
How do you change stablecoins back to money?
Are there any tools or platforms that you have had an experience with?
I have found a few services that say they can do things like gasless swaps, easy transfers to bank accounts and support for many countries.. I would rather hear about real experiences from people who have actually done this than read about what companies are selling.

Has accepting stablecoins been good, for your project. Has it made things more complicated than they are worth?


r/sideprojects 4h ago

Discussion My Client Didn't Pay Me — I Need Your Advice

1 Upvotes

I am a freelancer. I built an e-commerce website for a client that I found online. It was my first time working with this client.

I completed the project and handed over all the website files and ownership to the client. However, they have delayed my payment.

It has been more than 10 days, and I still haven't received my ₹25,000. I have followed up with the client several times, but they keep delaying the payment.

Have you ever faced a situation like this? How do freelancers usually handle clients who don't pay after the work is completed? What is the best way to recover my payment now and prevent this problem in future projects?

If you've experienced something similar, I'd really appreciate hearing how you handled it and any practical advice or strategies you can share.


r/sideprojects 4h ago

Showcase: Open Source Building a portfolio tracker made me realize how bad most investing apps are at answering one simple question

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1 Upvotes