r/sideprojects 18h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I built a virtual pet couples raise together instead of another messaging app

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1 Upvotes

Most relationship apps try to make people communicate more.

I wanted to try something different.

Instead of reminding people to text...

Why not give them something to take care of together?

So I built Ziggy.

A tiny virtual pet synced between two phones.

Both partners can:

• Feed it

• Play with it

• Grow it together

• Unlock little shared moments

The goal isn't replacing conversations.

It's giving couples more reasons to start them.

This is the launch video I made.

I'd genuinely love feedback.

What would make something like this fun enough to use every day?


r/sideprojects 20h ago

Discussion 9 rules for building your own internal tools if you cant code (2026)

0 Upvotes

Built a handful of tools for my business this year with no coding background. Stuff I wish someone told me first:

  1. Describe the workflow, not the feature. "Here's how a job moves through my shop" beats "add a button."

  2. Build one painful thing first. Not your whole system. One leak.

  3. Give it your real data, not fake examples. It builds to what it sees.

  4. Test the boring edge cases yourself. That's where it breaks.

  5. Never let it "improve" something that already works. It'll break it fixing something else.

  6. Expect to redo things 3 times. That's normal, not failure.

  7. If you can't explain the process clearly, the tool can't build it. Fix your understanding first.

  8. Keep it ugly until it works. Pretty comes last.

  9. The goal is the outcome, not the app. If the problem's gone, you're done.

Curious to hear if non-coders who built their own have any additions to this list.


r/sideprojects 21h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) AR DrawKit - Draw Using Camera or Screen - Free Promo Code Giveaway

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0 Upvotes

App Name: AR DrawKit

Every AR Drawing app has a premium gate for most resources, too many ads, or the price is too high. So, I built my own. Very few ads and a very low-priced plan with premium features that most of the apps are missing.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.devnerd.ardrawingkit

How it Works:

  1. Pick an image from the app / Gallery / Browse from the internet

  2. Select how you want to draw (with camera or on screen)

  3. Sketch and complete your drawing

If you are new, my app has over 200 step-by-step guided drawings.

Exclusive features:

  • Art Wall - for sharing your drawing
  • Community Drawing - People can share art for others to draw
  • Text ART
  • AI for background removal of your images while drawing

P.S: I am constantly updating the app as my wife is using it daily to draw. As I have a real user in my home, so the features are and will be user-friendly.

If you want to try it or want to share it with someone, please comment; I'll share a promo code with you.


r/sideprojects 21h ago

Showcase: Open Source Built AI Integrated StarGazIng Tool— point your phone at the sky and an AI knows what you're looking at 🌌

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone! 👋

I've been working on StarGazer, an experimental open-source project that combines real-time astronomy, phone sensors, and AI.

The idea is simple:

Point your phone at the night sky, and the app renders what you're actually looking at in your browser. The AI already knows what's under your crosshair, so instead of searching manually you can ask things like:

  • Why does Mars look red?
  • Is tonight good for observing?
  • Any visible satellites overhead?
  • Tell me about this constellation.

Under the hood it:

  • 📱 Streams GPS + rotation vector data from an Android phone
  • 🌍 Computes live positions using Skyfield and NASA JPL ephemerides
  • ⭐ Renders ~900 stars, all 89 constellations, 110 Messier objects, and the visible planets
  • 🤖 Uses LangGraph + Groq so the AI understands what you're pointing at
  • 🔧 Includes tools for weather, moon phase, satellite tracking, web search, and astronomy information

This isn't a polished product—it's a curiosity-driven side project that started with the question:

GitHub:
https://github.com/Irfan-gitt/Stargazing-Tool-Cosmos-AI-


r/sideprojects 9h ago

Showcase: Prerelease After 2 years of building my productivity app, I’d love some honest criticism.

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I’ve been building NotaTask for a little over 2 years as a side project. It started because I wanted a note-taking and task app that stayed simple instead of trying to become an all-in-one workspace.

Over time I’ve kept improving it based on user feedback, and I recently released the native Android app.

I’m looking for honest feedback from people who use productivity apps regularly.

Some questions I’m especially interested in:

  • What makes you stick with a productivity app long-term?
  • What’s the first thing you look for when trying a new notes/tasks app?
  • Is there anything you feel existing apps still don’t do well?

If you’d like to try NotaTask, I’m happy to share the link in the comments (if that’s allowed by the subreddit rules).

I’d genuinely appreciate any criticism or suggestions. Thanks!

notatask.com


r/sideprojects 21h ago

Discussion My side project outgrew its website

24 Upvotes

I always thought launching would be the hard part but now it feels like the website is falling behind faster than the product itself since I've shipped a bunch of new features over the past few months and changed the positioning a couple of times but every website update turns into making new pages, checking SEO, updating old pages and trying not to break everything else in the process.

It's not even that any individual task is difficult but maintaining the site feels like its own side project now.


r/sideprojects 21h ago

Discussion Add your apps so people can try them

18 Upvotes

Add your apps so people can try them

I'll start.

I run Aivrae, an independent multi-model AI API gateway with one OpenAI-compatible base URL and API key. For SaaS products with AI features, selected models are priced up to 85% below official API rates, helping reduce recurring AI usage costs; new users also get $1 in API trial credit.


r/sideprojects 22h ago

Discussion Reddit told me my startup idea wasn’t differentiated enough. I took the feedback seriously and changed the direction. Did I improve?

2 Upvotes

A week ago, I shared my startup idea here and received a lot of honest feedback.
The biggest criticism was that building MVPs has become cheap and easy thanks to AI. Many people said there are already too many tools that can generate apps or websites, so another AI builder wouldn’t solve a real problem.
After reading every comment, I realized they were right. Instead of trying to build another AI app generator, I’m now focusing on something different.
The new idea is an AI operating copilot for founders.
Rather than replacing tools, it sits on top of them. The goal is to help founders understand what to do next, point out missing assumptions, interpret analytics, suggest experiments, and connect information across the tools they already use.
I’m still validating the idea, so I’d really appreciate honest feedback. Does this direction sound more valuable than another AI builder?
What would make you actually want to use something like this?


r/sideprojects 23h ago

Feedback Request We're looking for people to try our new platform and tell us what we can improve

5 Upvotes

These days, creators often have to use several different platforms: one for blogging, another for their community, another for project updates, and yet another to stay connected with their audience. We wanted to see what it would be like if all of that lived in one place, so we built The Deya.

On The Deya, you can write blog posts, share your projects, startups, or hobbies, meet like-minded people, build a community around your ideas, and support creators whose work you enjoy. If you're not a creator, you can simply read posts, watch videos, browse memes, chat with people, and discover communities that match your interests.

The Deya is available on both web and mobile.

https://thedeya.com/

We'd really appreciate your honest feedback. What would make you use a platform like this regularly?


r/sideprojects 36m ago

Discussion i'll find where your first customers are hiding. drop what you built

Upvotes

i've done this for a bunch of founders over the last month and it's the same story every single time, so i'll keep going.

quick context so this doesn't read like some rando offering: i've launched 8 products, done millions of organic reddit views with zero ad spend, ran growth for a YC backed company, and lovable flew me out to their HQ at 18. reddit's been the engine behind basically all of it. but that's not the point.

the point is what doing this over and over taught me. your customers are already on reddit right now, today, posting about the exact problem your product solves. they're just not in the room you're posting in. most founders drop their launch in r/startups and r/SaaS, which is a crowd of other builders who will never buy anything, and then wonder why nothing happens. meanwhile the people who'd actually pay are two subreddits over, complaining about the thing you fix, with no idea you exist.

a guy in my DMs last week sells a tool for pet sitters. his customers weren't in any "startup" sub, they were in a community of sitters ranting about how big a cut the big platforms take from every booking. that's the whole game. find the room where they're already frustrated, be genuinely useful in it, and let them come to you.

if you want to learn to find that room yourself, i wrote up my entire reddit playbook, free, no email wall: https://www.sentrive.ai/guides/reddit-growth-playbook

or just drop what you're building and who you think your customer is, and i'll tell you the exact subreddits where your first 100 are actually hanging out. happy to keep going.

If you can't wait and want your marketing to get handled immediately, I built a tool that does this automatically (sentrive) because I got tired of doing it by hand, but you don't need it, drop your product below and I'll do yours.

20, building from sweden


r/sideprojects 23h ago

Feedback Request WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY APP SO FAR? PLEASE NEED ALL THE ADVICE I CAN GET!

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2 Upvotes

Im 16 years old trying to build this app i need just some advice on this so if you could answer so of my questions and give me advice it would be thanked. I'm building Break the Ice, a (maybe) paid app designed to help people start better conversations on dates, with new friends, at parties, and even with family (like siblings, grandparents, mother, son, daughter).

These are some screenshot of my app in production. I will drop a video next of the app, so far and the second screenshot is just the box floating around it just happened to look wrong in screenshots.

Rate my app so far and would you pay for this app either through making it a paid app or subscription model or one time app purchase?


r/sideprojects 2h ago

Showcase: Prerelease I built Snaptle — an app for meeting people who share your interests

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2 Upvotes
Body:


Founder here, so this is self-promo — but I'd genuinely rather have your henost feedback and how can i improve it.
The itch: I wanted to meet new people online around actual shared interests. Every option was either a dating app (wrong intent) or a "drop your username" thread full of bots. Nothing in between.
What I built — Snaptle, briefly:
- Spotlight — a browsable directory of people. Filter by interests, platform or location, or put yourself on it and get found.
- The Deck — swipe through profiles and opt in. Both say yes → you're connected and can chat.
- Chat — clean text-only inbox with read receipts, report/block one tap away.
- Shoutout-for-shoutout — pair up, support each other's posts, keep the streak alive. For creators who want to grow together instead of shouting into the void.
- Random video chat (web) — location-based, drops you into a call with a stranger. The scariest thing I've shipped.
- Safety, because it's the whole ballgame here: photos screened before anyone sees them, exact location never shared (fuzzed area only), SFW.
- Random video chat with other poeple.


Where it's at: web app live at snaptle.com, iOS build in App Store review. Free.
Feedback I'd love: is there anything confusing in the first 60 seconds, and what should i add to use my app daily ?

r/sideprojects 2h ago

Feedback Request Officially launched!

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2 Upvotes

r/sideprojects 7h ago

Meta Product Hunt Clones. Are they worth it

8 Upvotes

There are dozens of websites out there to help you "launch" your product. Do people use them? Are they worth it? Websites like uneed and microlaunch, etc.


r/sideprojects 7h ago

Showcase: Free(mium) I vibe coded a 3D multiplayer racing game that runs entirely in the browser

2 Upvotes

What it is: Neon Drift — a free arcade racing game with drifting, nitro boosts, a story career mode, weekly tournaments and real-time multiplayer (up to 6 players). No download, works on desktop and mobile: https://neondriftgame.online

Why I built it: I wanted to see how far AI-assisted development could go beyond CRUD apps — a real-time 3D game felt like a proper stress test. Full transparency: it's built on Base44 (an AI app builder), with me directing and iterating rather than hand-writing the code.

Tech under the hood:

  • three.js for 3D rendering, plain JS physics modules kept outside React
  • WebRTC peer-to-peer for multiplayer position sync, with server polling as fallback + TURN relays for strict NATs
  • Server-side validation of every race result (anti-cheat) via backend functions
  • Procedural audio (engine sounds, drift chimes) with the Web Audio API

Biggest challenges:

  1. Multiplayer sync — interpolating remote cars so they don't teleport between updates
  2. Performance — keeping 60fps on mobile meant lazy-loading the engine, avoiding backdrop-filters over WebGL, and quality scaling
  3. AI-friendly architecture — the biggest lesson: strictly separating game logic into small, spec'd modules made AI iteration reliable instead of chaotic

What I'd love feedback on: game feel (handling/drift), and whether the multiplayer connection is smooth from your region.

https://reddit.com/link/1v45teo/video/b92he4q3cxeh1/player


r/sideprojects 17h ago

Showcase: Prerelease Looking for testers for BrokenTelephone game (closed testing)

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2 Upvotes