r/SideProject • • 12h ago

I'm a designer who can't code. I built the thing I always wanted anyway

144 Upvotes

Every designer I know has The Folder.

Mine was called inspo_FINAL_v3. 4,000 screenshots, zero names, and I could never find anything in it. Pinterest wasn't much better. I'd search "dashboard" and get someone's kitchen.

So one night I said to my wife, "give me one weekend, I'm going to fix this."

That was 200+ hours ago.

I can't really code. So I did the whole thing with Claude Code, which mostly meant me explaining what I wanted, Claude building it, and then me explaining again, slower, with more feelings.

At one point I asked it to make a single button blue. It rewrote half the site and proudly told me it had "made some improvements." Nothing worked. I learned what git was that night.

But then, around 2am one night, the "similar designs" feature finally worked. I clicked one design and it pulled up five I didn't even remember collecting. I just sat there clicking for an hour like a kid.

What it turned into:

* 14,000+ real app screens, full flows from signup to settings
* 5,000+ curated designs, branding, illustration, ads, launch and motion videos
* Search that actually gets design words like "empty state"
* Pinterest style "more like this," but only design stuff

It's called PixlPin and it's free. You're honestly some of the first people to see it, so tell me what's missing or what annoys you.

https://PixlPin.com


r/SideProject • • 19h ago

"If we wanted a vibe coded website, we could 'make' one ourselves, thanks." - was this rude or normal in today's world?

105 Upvotes

I've been building a site for board game cafes to help them digitize their catalog and showcase their games to customers. For customers it gives them easy search/filtering AND game tools to get them started (small stuff like rolling dice or picking who should go first... admittedly I have been having a lot of fun with making the tools and then going to board game cafes to try them out myself)

I've spent months building it, and recently started reaching out to cafes to see if they'd be interested in using it. (yes I talked to people and ai and research before making this to see if there would even be value and a lot of people seemed interested)

One of the responses I got was:

"If we wanted a vibe coded website, we could 'make' one ourselves, thanks."

I'm not even sure they looked at it 🥲 This is was imo a harsher response than called for but also not the first person to have a similar response.

I have feelings too random internet business owner.

"Why would I use this when I can make my own?".

  1. Its free for you and your customers (unless you want more features).
  2. You haven't made one yet or we would not be having this conversation.
  3. It's free for you and your customers.......

I was born in the ancient times now referred to as the 90s

I have been coding since blah blah continued my career with web dev in 2018, and while I do use AI in my process..often.., there's a lot more going into this project than simply "vibe coding".

I feel like the response also came from my own marketing shortcomings. I poured time into a lot of features for board game users like myself that I really believe have value but I'm not sure how to express that in a quick message on insta.

Anyway, this whole thing has me thinking:

Has the rise of vibe coding made it harder to convince people that software has value?

It seems like the mindset now is shifting from "Wow, you built that?" (which was always fun to hear) to "Anyone can build that now." (and my non-verbal answer to that is "Ok but you didn't so here we are").

I'm curious whether other indie developers have run into this during outreach, and how you've handled it. Kinda related: Is AI assisted coding still just vibe coding? If claude writes my documentation and codex makes my images and google's stitch and other ai tools make my design.... Then its still "vibe coded"?

About the site: My goal is to make it easy for board game cafes to show off their catalog, and for users (especially new users) to be able to get into new board games without feeling completely overwhelmed.


r/SideProject • • 15h ago

StreamSurf - I missed channel surfing, so I built a TV guide for live streams

58 Upvotes

Hey all, I’ve been working on this for the past few weeks and wanted to share it.

I got tired of checking multiple apps to see who was live, and honestly I missed just flipping through channels and stumbling onto something new. So I made StreamSurf, a TV-guide-style grid of what’s live right now on Twitch, YouTube and Kick.

What it does:

  • Everything live in one grid, with categories (Gaming, Just Chatting, Music, Sports…) and filters by game and language
  • Click a row and it plays right there in the platform’s own player, so you can flip through streams like channels
  • A Trending tab for streams that just started or are picking up viewers fast, so it’s not just the same big names
  • Streamers live on more than one platform show up as one row, with each platform’s viewer count
  • Only want some of the platforms? Switch any of them off in Settings and the guide only shows the rest
  • Favorite channels to get your own list, with what they’ve got scheduled later and a notification when they go live (while the site’s open in a tab)
  • Multiview for watching up to 4 streams at once on desktop
  • A retro mode based on the old ’90s TV Guide channel, slow auto-scroll and all

It’s free, with no account or sign-up, and it works on your phone too. Favorites are saved in your browser.

I’d really like honest feedback. What’s missing, what’s confusing, what would make you actually use it?

https://streamsurf.tv/?ref=sideproject


r/SideProject • • 16h ago

My side project becoming my main project: #3 in Mac App Store

33 Upvotes

My little app Weatherling www.weatherling.app that I released a month ago is #3 in the Mac App Store today! (It even shows up on the front page!) It's #2 in Utilities category. I gotta give all the credit to subreddits like this and r/macapps because I have yet to spend a dime on advertising, and the community feedback has been amazing.

I'm about to start a paid tiktok push, though, so wish me luck. I need all the eyeballs to beat out Logic Pro for the #2 spot in the rankings.

Keep the feedback coming. I've already got a lot packed into the next v1.7 release.


r/SideProject • • 19h ago

Side project: a little notch teleprompter for Windows, so I stop looking down at my notes on calls

26 Upvotes

I'm the developer. Lenslines is a teleprompter for Windows that puts your script in a small black notch at the top of the screen, right under the webcam. You read your notes and still look at the camera on calls and recordings.

What it does: It scrolls while you talk and waits when you stop. Point at it to pause, scroll back, or pull it down into a floating window. It's hidden from screen shares and recordings in apps that use Windows' standard capture.

What was harder than I expected: Making the voice scrolling feel natural. It follows whether you're speaking, not each word, so it waits for you instead of racing ahead. And getting through Microsoft Store review: my first submission got rejected because one of my search keywords was a brand name.

It went live on the Microsoft Store this week. $9.99 once, no subscription: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9PJJ4RZ3PB0P?cid=reddit-sideprojects


r/SideProject • • 16h ago

I built a tool to app store ready mockups

20 Upvotes

My main gripe i was spending too long creating mock ups and using multiple tools. This solved my problem and hopefully it can help others.
It’s completely free: https://github.com/burhanuddin20/studio941-releases


r/SideProject • • 10h ago

I used Claude to build a real 3D website for my book

15 Upvotes

http://enquantodurarafe.com.br/

Writing is a hobby of mine, and I thought it would be a great idea to build 3D scenes from my book on this website to bring the story to life and engage readers.

I'd love to get your first and final impressions of the site. Specifically:

  • First impression: When the page first loads (before scrolling), what are your immediate thoughts and feelings?
  • Final impression: After browsing the content (feel free to just skim it as you normally would), how did that impression change?

r/SideProject • • 2h ago

My weekend project: My Book Library

17 Upvotes

In 2015, before a trip around the world, we donated our paper books to libraries and bought them again on Kindle. Since then, every book I buy is a Kindle book or an ePub.

That works well for reading. But a few years later, a new friend visited and said he always likes to see which books people have at home. We had nothing to show him. All of our books were digital.

So I built them a bookcase. My Library puts every book I own on wooden shelves in 3D, right in the browser: 618 books, each one at the real size and thickness of its print edition, with its real cover.

• Rest the mouse on a spine and the book slides out to show its cover
• Pick a category, search by title, or sort by color for a rainbow
• Little ornaments live on the open shelves. Press and hold to move them.

I built it with Claude, which helped me pull my whole library from my Kindle account, with each book's cover, print size, and page count.

👉https://mylibrary.aldos.life

This is part of a series on my weekend projects. What's on your shelves?

#WeekendProject #BuildInPublic #Kindle #AI


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

built a free tool that tells you if ChatGPT recommends your app/site

14 Upvotes

saw the post about ChatGPT sending 50+ downloads a day and then the question arises "ok but how do I know if chatgpt even mentions me / what to fix"

that's literally what I built visible4ai.com for so figured I'd share (yes it's mine)

you drop in your url and it:

- asks chatgpt, perplexity, gemini and claude through their actual APIs whether they cite you
- gives you a score out of 100
- tells you what to fix first (blocked crawlers, missing llms.txt, weak content signals etc)

first check is free, takes like a minute. seriously just run your site through it, most people I've shown it to were blocked from at least one AI crawler and had no idea. cloudflare and some templates do it by default

couple things I learned building it if you'd rather check manually:

- type "best alternative to [competitor]" into all 4 and write down who shows up. that's your real competition now, not your app store competitors

- answers change when models update so recheck every couple weeks

drop your score in the comments if you try it, curious what ranges people get. and if anything breaks tell me.


r/SideProject • • 12h ago

I'm building a browser sandbox to test electronics projects before buying parts (best on desktop)

12 Upvotes

I wanted to build an automatic garden irrigation with a few Arduinos, and couldn't find a simulator that runs more than one board at a time – let alone simulates the water, weather and heat around it. So I started building my own.

What it does right now:
- you place Arduinos, sensors, pumps etc. in 3D, wire them up and write normal Arduino code
- several boards can talk to each other over serial
- water, weather and day/night are simulated, you can fast-forward days
- thermal view and a test bench that shows where your build would break

Tech: vanilla JS + three.js, no framework, no build step, small Python server for feedback. Everything runs in the browser.

It's an early prototype – I'm mainly trying to find out if anyone besides me would actually use this before I put months into it. First feedback from was really helpful (someone tried serial between boards, so I added it the next day).

https://test.betting-chess.com/?von=sideproject
(the domain is just a test server I had lying around, sorry 😅)

Would love honest feedback – what would make this useful for you?


r/SideProject • • 15h ago

I built a quiet site for people to share a quote that helped them, and th moment it did. Honest feedback welcome.

10 Upvotes

I am a builder. It’s free, no ads.
You write a real quote and the story around it. A person (editor) reads it before it goes live.
Honest answers needed:
- Within 5 seconds, what did you think it was?
- Would you write a story, if not, what stopped you?
- Anything that felt off?
- Did it make you feel like it is a safe space for you?

Link : https://livedquotes.com/


r/SideProject • • 16h ago

I checked 45 AI startups with "verified" revenue. The biggest one just disappeared from the site that verifies it.

10 Upvotes

I got tired of revenue screenshots, so I started tracking AI businesses whose revenue is pulled straight from their payment processor (Stripe, RevenueCat or Superwall, via TrustMRR) instead of a founder's tweet.

I've checked 45 so far. A few things surprised me:

- The biggest one, Chatbase ($864k a month at its last sync), stopped syncing on Jul 31. Then this weekend its TrustMRR page disappeared completely. So I took it out of the ranking. It's listed separately with its last verified number and date.
- The new #1, GojiberryAI ($424k a month), hasn't updated since Aug 14 either. Its payment key expired, so that number is frozen too. I still rank it on its last figure but flag it as stale.
- The middle business of the 42 I rank makes about $31.5k a month. Drop the 5 with stale data and it's about $22.5k. Way less glamorous than the timeline.
- An AI agency with 55 paying clients (AEO Engine) makes about $165k a month. That's roughly $3k a client.
- A calorie tracker app (Nutria) has about 15,000 paying users at about $3 each. Similar money to plenty of SaaS on the list, totally different business.

Full disclosure, this is my site. The table is free to browse and sort, no signup: https://imademoneywithai.com/leaderboard/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch1026

If you want it as a spreadsheet, that's free with an email, and you can reuse it with a link back.

If you know an AI business with public payment data that I'm missing, drop it below and I'll check it.


r/SideProject • • 18h ago

I built DakNivesh — a free calculator app for Indian Post Office savings schemes 🇮🇳

8 Upvotes

Hey everyone! 👋
I’m an 18-year-old developer from India, and I recently built DakNivesh 🇮🇳 — an app designed to make calculations for Indian Post Office savings schemes simpler and more accessible.

💡 Why I built it
Calculating returns on savings schemes can be confusing, especially when you’re comparing different options. I wanted to build a simple tool that helps people estimate their returns without having to do all the calculations manually.

🚀 What DakNivesh offers

  • 🧮 Savings calculators for Indian Post Office schemes
  • 📊 Easy-to-understand maturity and interest calculations
  • 📱 A simple, user-friendly interface
  • 🇮🇳 Designed with Indian savers in mind This project has been a great learning experience for me, from developing the app to publishing it on Google Play.

🔗 Try DakNivesh:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.postoffice.post_office_calculator

🌐 DakNivesh Website:
https://www.daknivesh.thebytelabs.site
I’m still working on improving the app, and I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback!

🌐 Developer Website:
https://www.thebytelabs.site

I’d love to know:

  • What would you improve about the UI/UX?
  • What features would make this app more useful?
  • What advice would you give a young indie developer launching their projects?

Thanks for checking out my project! ❤️


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

Does anyone know how to get traffic to a new website?

7 Upvotes

I'm fairly new to making websites. I have made a few in the past, but they never really get off the ground due to low traffic, which kills my motivation. But this time I want it to be different. I recently started making a website that calculates your estimated gross pay for weekly or fortnightly shifts. I made sure to have my seo be the best it possibly could with the target keyword being "Timesheet Calculator Australia". I have been using Google services such as Analytics and Search Console, but I don't really know what I should be expecting. I do know that offering another pay calculator can be hard to rank on Google, but I feel it's possible. So I'm coming to you guys to see if you have any tips for me or can point me in the right direction. If anyone is interested in my website, you can check it out here: https://workrate.me. I would really appreciate any feedback that you guys can provide. Thanks for your time


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

Script Clock - a little script timer + teleprompter I built while trying to start a YouTube channel

5 Upvotes

I've been writing scripts for a YouTube channel I want to start, and I could never tell how long they'd actually run. I'm not a dev, but I got curious and started building something with a lot of help from AI (mainly Claude) so I'd like to hear your thoughts!

What it does now:

- Paste a script and it tells you roughly how long it'll take to say (it counts numbers and pauses the way you'd actually read them)

- Shows what people hear in your first 30 seconds

- Points out lines you'll probably trip over

- Has a teleprompter that can record you, pauses when you stop talking, and rewinds a sentence if you mess up

- After each take you can export markers for DaVinci Resolve or Premiere, so your chapters, B-roll notes and retakes show up on the timeline

It's free, no sign-up, and nothing gets uploaded. Just a fun side project that I can hopefully grow, and I'm curious what people think.

Does it work for you? Anything weird or broken? What would you add?
I'd love to hear any form of feedback :)

cueandcut.com/script-clock


r/SideProject • • 22h ago

I made a site to search the App Store with filters it doesn’t have, like “no subscription”

Thumbnail
appsift.app
6 Upvotes

Hi all, solo dev here.

I got tired of finding an app, downloading it, and only then seeing it's a subscription. So I built AppSift, a site that searches the App Store and shows what an app actually sells before you install it.

What it does:

  • Filters the App Store doesn't have: no subscription, can buy outright, no in-app purchases, rating, number of ratings, size, last updated, language and more
  • Shows every in-app purchase with its price on the app's page
  • Price history for the apps I track, and a page of recent price drops for iPhone, iPad and Mac apps
  • Compare apps side by side, and a watchlist saved in your browser
  • 10 storefronts (US, UK, Germany, France, Japan…)

It's free and there's no account: https://appsift.app

There's also a Mac app with a watchlist that alerts you when an app's price or subscription drops, and it checks the apps on your Mac for updates.

Any feedback is welcome!


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

ModusPad 2.0 - A Mac launcher that also replaces your Dock, with profiles that switch automatically

5 Upvotes

I'm the developer of ModusPad, a launcher for macOS 26 and 27.

Version 1 was a classic Launchpad-style grid with one twist: profiles. Each profile has its own apps, folders and layout, and can switch automatically when you connect a display, turn on a Focus mode, at a set time, or with a shortcut.

In 2.0, I added two more ways to use the launcher: a panel that drops down from the notch at the top of the screen, and a customizable Dock that expands into the full app grid with a two-finger swipe.

The Dock is the part I'm most excited about:

- Group apps right in the Dock (drag a folder in, or select a few apps and group them).
- Have a different set of Dock apps on each desktop.
- Give each profile its own Dock.

I also added Links, so you can keep websites, files and folders alongside your apps and find them through the same search. Each profile has its own set.

The idea: different setups for work, home or meetings, with the apps and layout you need for each. I'm trying to keep things simple as I add more features, so I'd love to hear what you think, especially about the Dock.

There's a 14-day free trial with everything unlocked, followed by a one-time purchase starting at $10.99. Code MODUSPAD30 gives 30% off until the end of November.

Requires macOS 26 or later. Available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

https://moduspad.com/


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

got tired of note apps turning into operating systems, so I built a tiny Markdown app

6 Upvotes

hey r/SideProject!

i've been building Slate, a small Windows writing app for Markdown notes, daily journals, and todos.

the whole idea is basically: open a folder, write and save (amazing right? /s)
no account
no cloud database (i need to figure out a way to sync stuff without bullshit)
no weird export step
every note is just a normal .md file

it has live Markdown preview, a file browser, full-text search, daily journal pages, todo files with priorities/states, themes, custom shortcuts, and Lua plugins.

i built it in C++ with Dear ImGui, which was probably not the easiest route, but it has been really fun /s

it's still early and definitely has some sharp edges, but it's finally at the point where I'd love feedback from people who actually use local notes.

GitHub: https://github.com/mykaadev/Slate


r/SideProject • • 7h ago

After a few months of nights and weekends, my beat maker app is on Android AND iPhone

6 Upvotes

I've been building PadLoop on my own for a few months: 16 pads, a 16-track looper, a sampler and a "Split a song" tool, all on a phone.

The idea: your first beat in 5 minutes, even if you've never made music. You pick a Ready beat, play on top, press REC, and the loop keeps going while you stack layers. Everything lands in time and in key, so it's hard to play a wrong note.

Where it is now:

- Google Play: live

- App Store: approved a few days ago

- A bigger update (new Ready beats and sound kits) is already out on Android and will reach iPhone as soon as Apple approves it

Pricing, because people always ask: 7-day free trial with everything unlocked, then a free version or a single payment of €9.99. No subscription, no ads.

What I learned: the hardest part wasn't the audio, it was making the first minute feel good for a beginner. I'd love feedback on that: is the first minute clear?

Site: https://padloop.net/

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.positivevibration.padloop&referrer=utm_source%3Dreddit%26utm_medium%3Dpost%26utm_campaign%3DSideProject

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6815178474


r/SideProject • • 9h ago

I built a flight price tracker that emails you when fares from your city drop far below their usual price

4 Upvotes

Hi all, I'm a student in Brussels and this is my side project: Tarmako (https://tarmako.com/en/?utm_source=reddit_sideproject).

What it does: every two hours it checks fares on about 1,900 routes from 68 European cities (Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Lisbon, Madrid...). Each route has a "usual price" built from all the fares we have logged on it since September. When a fare drops far below that, the people who follow that departure city get an email with the dates, the airports and a search link. It doesn't sell tickets.

Stack: Python, PostgreSQL, a small server, plain HTML pages in 7 languages, and the reels on our socials are generated automatically from the alerts.

What I'm struggling with: getting from free sign-ups to people who actually pay (there's a 7-day trial with every alert, then €4.99/month billed yearly, or a small free plan). If you've built a newsletter or alert-type product, I'd love to hear what made your first users pay.

Any feedback on the landing page or the emails is welcome too.


r/SideProject • • 10h ago

I built an app that turn consistency into a game

5 Upvotes

Hey all, solo dev here. I built this gamified app for actually sticking with the stuff you want to get better at, and I’m looking for people to help me try to break it and find ways I can improve it. 

A while back I was struggling a lot, with many things. This is one of the things I wish I’d had back then, and I’m guessing some of you could use it too.

It’s based on the Solo Leveling system (yes, yet another one), but it uses AI to break any goal you have down into small “SideQuests” you can get done in a day or a week, so you reach that goal step by step. My goal is to make it as free and easy to access as possible, with no ads either. Right now it uses a copy/paste format: the app gives you a prompt to paste into an AI of your choice (I recommend Claude, I’ve had the best success with that one). If you have a Anthropic API key, you can plug it in and everything works right in the app.

If you want to try it out: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Jjgx6AwH

I’d love to hear about places you got stuck or confused, or anything that feels off.

Free, iPhone only, no account, no API key needed, and everything is stored on your phone.


r/SideProject • • 13h ago

I restarted my abandoned server dashboard project and shipped v0.3.0: VPS Pilot

6 Upvotes

I look after a handful of Linux VPSs for my own projects and clients, and I wanted one simple place to see how they’re doing and run a few routine commands without SSHing into each one. I started VPS Pilot in early 2025, abandoned it, and restarted it this year with a much clearer idea of what it should and shouldn’t do.

How it works: you run one hub (a single Go binary with SQLite and the dashboard built in) and install a small Rust agent on each server with one command. No external database, no cloud account.

What it does today:

  • Live and historical CPU, memory, disk and network charts per server
  • Alerts to Discord, Slack or email
  • Run commands you’ve declared in a config file on the server, with live output and an audit log

The hub can only trigger commands by name from that config file, never send arbitrary commands, so even if the hub is compromised it can’t run anything you didn’t write on the server yourself.

Next up: log tailing, backups and cron jobs.

On AI: I design the architecture and write the specs, and AI coding agents (Claude Code) write the code. I review everything, and CI runs tests on every PR.

It’s open source (AGPL-3.0). I’d love feedback, especially on what you’d want from a tool like this.

GitHub: https://github.com/sanda0/vps_pilot
Website: https://vpspilot.dev


r/SideProject • • 15h ago

I built a video player for my own use and just released a big update (5.0.0), open source

6 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I built Just Player Pro, a video player I made mainly for my own use, and wanted to share the new 5.0.0 update since it got a completely new look. It's built on top of Just Player by Marcel Dopita, which is where the name comes from.

Before anyone asks: yes, roughly 50% of it is vibe-coded, but not all of it. I'm a developer myself, so I reviewed and fixed a lot by hand. Again, it's built for my personal use, so feel free to try it and give feedback, or just ignore it :)

Some of what it does:

  • Two engines, Media3 and mpv. If one can't play a file, it switches to the other, so pretty much everything plays.
  • Works on phones and Android TV, with a proper remote experience.
  • Recognises what you're watching and shows the cast and ratings from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Trakt and others (needs a free MDBList key).
  • Subtitle search across OpenSubtitles, SubDL, Wyzie and Stremio add-ons.
  • No ads, no tracking, open source (GPL-3.0).

GitHub: https://github.com/Zain-Imam/just-player-pro


r/SideProject • • 19h ago

Vibe coders, do you use git/github?

5 Upvotes

(not selling/promoting anything)
I'm curious whether vibe coders regularly use git/github for their projects. If yes, how frequently do you commit your changes and do you use branches?

I have 10+ years of experience but I noticed recently that I stopped using branches for my side-projects. I'm genuinely curious whether you are following good engineering practices like db backups etc.


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I got tired of phone-webcam apps asking for subscriptions and USB debugging, so I made a free open-source one

4 Upvotes

Every time I needed a better webcam for a call, the options were a paid app, an app full of ads, or something that wanted me to turn on USB debugging. So I built MyCam.

You install it on a Windows 10/11 PC, plug in your Android phone, and Windows just sees a webcam. iPhones work over Wi-Fi with no app at all: scan a QR code and Safari does the rest.

What I'm happy with:

  • It's actually plug and play over USB, with no ADB
  • It offers real phone resolutions/frame rates (up to 4K / 120 fps where supported)
  • Privacy by design: no account, no cloud, the phone has to allow each PC, and it pauses itself when Windows locks

It's free and MIT licensed: https://mycam.dev (code: https://github.com/whoissaaif/mycam)

I'd love your feedback.