41
123 Comments

Have you written any software for personal use?

Most of use are techies and prob have something we wrote for ourselves and use it for personal use. What have you written on your own for your personal use?

posted to Icon for group Developers
Developers
on April 14, 2022
  1. 11

    I built an app to provision and manage servers — something like Laravel forge (for those of you familiar with Laravel).

    It used to be a pain in the arse to manually create a server on Vultr or DigitalOcean.
    At the time, my freelancing clients were not paying enough for me to pay the monthly subscription on Laravel forge.
    So, I started by writing a bash script that provisions a server and configure Nginx for PHP/Laravel applications (and all other dependencies).

    As time went on, I added a UI and some more functionalities like:

    • creating a database
    • running queues
    • and my all time favorite feature: zero downtime deploy for when a user pushes new code to the main branch.

    So far, I have 15 servers running, with no hiccups.
    I even used the app to deploy itself! 😁

    It is my proudest achievement since I started writing code.

    My long-term goal is to turn it into a business, just like Laravel forge.
    For now I happily charge my clients for hosting & managing their projects!

    1. 3

      People interested in this and not using PHP should take a look at Piku. It is a similarly simple solution, but maintained as an open source project.

    2. 1

      This is an absolute gold mine you're sitting on. Good luck!

    3. 1

      This is something I would buy.

    4. 1

      At the time, my freelancing clients were not paying enough for me to pay the monthly subscription on Laravel forge.

      Out of curiosity, at the time, did you consider the effort it takes to build and maintain this script vs buying Laravel Forge and putting the focus on giving value to other client(s)?

      Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for your achievement! You would definitely be able to bootstrap this software :)

      1. 3

        Out of curiosity, at the time, did you consider the effort it takes to build and maintain this script vs buying Laravel Forge and putting the focus on giving value to other client(s)?

        1. I did not have a lot of clients at the time, and the few I had were not paying enough (as I had just started freelancing). Time was something I had on my side.
        2. I had been learning Linux and Nginx and server stuff and this was the perfect playground for me to practice what I'd learned.
        3. It was fun! Once I had it up and running, it paid for all the "time I'd wasted".

        Maintainability?
        I use it for my personal projects as well as the clients I'm managing, so I treat it like a TOOL, just like my laptop, to facilitate my work.
        I don't mind maintaining it (especially as it is really easy to maintain, based on the optimizations and automations).
        It's definitely made my life better, and that's the highest thing I value.

  2. 8

    I play board games, and we need a timer to keep the game times under control. But all the existing ones ran on single phones that had to be moved from person to person. So I created a timer that synchronises across any number of phones so everyone can have a phone within reach. 🤳

    And then I went crazy and spent 15 months adding feature after feature to the poor thing! 😅 I can now change the room lights to the current player colour! (Bluetooth rocks)

    I made it freely available here: https://sharedgametimer.com

    1. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

      1. 1

        I just replied to him via email. THanks for the tip. Will be checking out the emoji package he used for my app too

  3. 5

    I've recently built a browser extension that enables me to jump to predefined websites using keyboard shortcuts. For example, Alt+J N takes me straight to Notion. There were already many keyboard shortcut extensions available but none of them matched my requirements fully. So I implemented a new one that meets my needs perfectly:

    • it works globally (from any active window in the OS, not only in the browser)
    • it doesn't create duplicate tabs if the desired website is already opened, it just activates the existing one
    • it doesn't inject any scripts to all the opened tabs like many other extensions do (I was concerned about privacy and security)

    I thought that other people may also find it useful so I published the Tab Hot Key extension in the Web Store:
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-hot-key/amdglafidmblcmffjcbgkmbogkenfdjh

    1. 2

      Hi Lukasz, I liked the idea of the extension so I downloaded it and tried it. So far so good. Sometimes it doesn't open tabs, possibly due to me changing the open the base hot key and clicking the buttons too fast. I'd recommend linking to chrome://extensions/shortcuts so people can just click it rather than have to search around for it. Thanks for creating this!

      1. 1

        Hi Alex, thank you so much for your feedback!

        I'll send you an email asking for more context about the bug (browser version, OS, etc.). I'd want the shortcuts to always work. One of the things that I didn't like about other shortcut extensions was that they work only sometimes. I would want the Tab Hot Key to work reliably without any exceptions.

        As for linking to shortcut settings but the link didn't work. It looks like it's not allowed for extensions to open browser settings. Or maybe, I've just realized, it may be a matter of requesting access to the chrome:// "protocol" in the extension manifest file. I'll check it again.

  4. 3

    The whole reason I got into computer science in the first place was to build stuff for myself :) I’ve had quite a few personal projects and tools I’ve built over the years:

    • In college I built an iOS app to use as a life counter for the Magic: the Gathering tournaments I was playing in. I liked building for myself and also anyone else who might want to use it, I got about 5k downloads just from posting on Reddit

    • Continuing my MtG I then built a web app to host and share decklists (I didn’t like the existing solutions). Had quite a few other users as well after I shared on the same subreddit

    • I’ve written a lot of scripts over the years to automate various tasks (scrape and download images or data, process and transform data, migrate databases, rename/move files). Nothing too fancy. I’ve used both Node+JS and Python for these, but I prefer Node for scripts just because I’ve worked with it more.

    • I built my current blog entirely using Gatsby+React+Netlify. It’s free to host and has a custom domain because Netlify is awesome for static website. I wrote about how I did it a while back on IH.

    • Lastly, one of my current projects started out as a way for me to design and play games with my friends (I was inspired by Jackbox), but then I decided to try and turn it into an actual business. I had a booth at Gen Con 2021 and netted over $1k in sales from my games. In all, I’ve worked on Mobo Games for over 6 years now (on and off).

    Would love to hear what you have built for yourself!

  5. 3

    Where do I start...I have tons of small scraper for a lot of growth hacking projects :) I also have small bots that automate a lot of the work I do with third-party tools and connect API togethers.

    1. 1

      What are you go-to tools for making these bots/automations? Like Python?

  6. 2

    I build little telegram bots to notify me of things from random sources that don't have native push notifications. As long as something has webhooks or an API you can continually ping you can generally get something going.

    A lot of places have really generous free tiers so apart from the initial upfront hours you can generally run them for free using the various hosting platforms out there.

  7. 2

    Yes, https://uxboard.io/ - When i start working on a new web project, I want real-world examples for different website elements. Searching and checking websites myself very time consuming, uxboard solves this problem.

  8. 2

    I listen to Audible and have a huge library, and I like to crunch the numbers. But Audible doesn't provide a way to extract a list of titles and book lengths from your library. So I wrote a scraper to do that and return it as json or csv. I put it out there just in case someone else wants to use it. Here is it, https://networthpanel.com ❤️👂📚

  9. 2

    I have a Christmas grocery shopping script that my family has been using for the past 5 years to cut down the time we spend going back and forth to the store at Christmas time.

    I made an arduino pomodoro timer.

    I made an app that connects to my DSLRs wifi hotspot and makes my phone a wireless external monitor.

    I have a script that runs on top of a Swedish real estate listing website and calculates the average listing and selling prices for my area.

    Being able to code is so damn useful.

    Plus all the fancy formula heavy google sheets but that’s not software… right?

  10. 2

    Yeah loads - as a dev why would we ever buy/rent when we can have the fun of building something more specific to our own needs 😊 3 examples...

    My own CRM...
    First built 20 years ago and hacked to death with new bolt-ons over the years. I still live by it today. php/mysql.

    email mailbox filtering...
    All my inbound email goes through my own scripts to filter to different mailboxes, remove junk, etc.

    email marketing solution...
    Forget using someone's elses at £x/month. Over the past few weeks I built my own (php) to suit my specific needs for a current project. Totally hooked in to AWS/SES, fully automated bounce removal, clicks/opens monitored, A/B split tests, etc. I will continue to hack it to work for my exact needs, rather than me try to fit in to someone elses package.

    I've also mastered IP warm-ups and a lot of smoke & mirrors crap we're taught can be a danger to using email; but actually is really not that hard to get your head around. Email is not complex. If you are a dev then don't fall for the providers who tell you you need all their fancy tools - you don't.

    Having said that, I have wondered about offering email campaigns as a managed service ... anyone for ECaaS? 😊

  11. 2

    I read about Business Model Canvas so built a tool. And added Lean Model Canvas. And Orbit Strategy Planning. It includes Stakeholder Mapping. Quantitative and Qualitative Research. I read Traction and needed to visualise it, so added that to my model canvas. It's got an Eisenhower Decision Matrix. I added the bare bones of a bullet journal. And I was adding in a sticky notes page this week to trap my notes.

    Like everyone else here, was a tool for myself to scratch my own itch. A word of warning though is that it's often my go to tool when coding on my actual product feels like hard work. It's an easy excuse for a distraction (justified by the fact it's a bunch of tools to help my startup) - but it's often a way of avoiding doing the boring / grunt work I need to grind on to level up the actual product I'm trying to sell

    1. 1

      would love to use it myself to help ideating new app ideas (even if it's just super small ones)

  12. 2

    Data scraping, automating email sequences, checking inboxes for replies, etc. These were all time consuming as hell and I really wanted to spend more time talking to customers instead of doing grunt repetitive work.

    For example, keyboard shortcuts for replying "templatized" answers to generic questions.. saved me a TON of work. Instead of copy/pasting... you type in custom shortcuts. Example:

    ".i" (intro) Expands to introdution ("Let me explain... blah blah")
    ".e" (end conversation) Expands to ("Thanks. Have a nice day")

    This alone probably saves me 8+ hrs of manual typing or copy/pasting per week.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDXhf01zEfU

    1. 1

      There are plenty of text expanders out there, including both commercial as well as open source. Curious why you wrote your own?

      1. 2

        it was part of a larger sales automation product offering (https://www.getsalesfox.com/ ) . I could've used others but we're keen on in-sourcing really effective sales / marketing tools.

        the chrome extension we developed is for growth hackers to increase productivity (i.e. scrape fast - linkedin / google, type fast, etc etc.). So we thought it's probably wise to include it.

  13. 2

    I made one for myself recently, but shaped it like a product incase if anyone else wants to use it. Here is the one https://www.nonut.app

    PS: It doesn't support any movement as the name depicts. I couldn't think of any better name and came up with "nonut".

    1. 2

      I thought cheekily, "the name sounds like, erm..." so clicked your link and wowzers.

      1. 1

        Thank you.

        When it comes to explaining something in clear terms, I mess up all the time in every aspects of life. But I try!

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

      1. 1

        May I ask if you are single or not?

        1. 1

          This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

          1. 1

            It doesn't really fit for everyone. Think of screen time feature, most people doesn't check it regularly but when they do, they at least get an idea of where they stand in self control. Same concept apply for nonut.app except it's not measured automatically.

  14. 2

    I am using a typewriter.

  15. 2

    A fully automated Life Operating System using Alexa, Fitbits, NFC tags, automations and so much more.

    Imagine Jarvis from Iron Man.

  16. 2

    Finding a flat in Barcelona is hard! When I moved there with my co-founder André, we realized that it was an optimizable problem:

    • hundreds of flats in different platforms, you want to filter by your preferences
    • being the first to call

    So we built a small scraper with adapters to different flat listings like fotocasa.com, idealista.com… that would scrap every 5 m for new flats and put them in a DB. Then with a small ruby app we were getting notifications on our phones right when a new interesting flat appeared.

    It took us 1 week to find the flat 🙌

    1. 1

      any chance for this to be deployed as product?

      1. 1

        Hey Inad 😊 I don't have bandwidth at the moment, and I'm not sure if it would be a product that could get huge.

        In the end, you're giving users an edge in a very zero-sum game. The more users they use it, the less effective it becomes.

        At the time, we would have paid for this, maybe $30/50/100?

        I guess it could definitely become a lifestyle business.

  17. 2

    I used to play guitar a lot, and I wanted an app to record some song ideas. I didn't like the Android apps that solved this issue, so I built my own and released it: It's called Song Note. It's not a complete tab editor, I just wanted an editor that was quick and simple to use, so that's exactly what I did.

    I built Nice Converter to convert stuff, like colors and text. Sometimes I use it, but not as often as I had imagined.

    Also, I purchased a Kalimba and wanted to learn and make a few songs. I didn't like the existing solutions, so I came up with TabWhale. I'm currently working on it, adding and changing features according to users' feedback. It's the project I liked the most so far.

  18. 2

    All the time, I have built bots, scrapers, and enrichment engines, if you've thought of it I've probably built them for companies internally over the years.

    It wasn't until recently that I really thought about releasing them more.

    I know when it comes to a Growth Engineer, building internal projects is just part of the process, enrichment engines specifically.

    You'd be surprised how much you learn throughout the process, and I've even used those projects in the past to pitch new clients on the concept thus further validating them.

    It's all about taking what you know and putting it to work.

    1. 1

      What are you go-to tools for making these bots?

      1. 1

        Depending on the situation, most of the time the bots were triggered by a scraper.

        1. Scraper Runs
        2. Run through logic
        3. Post an update to express
        4. Express does something with the data

        That's the typical format for it, for example:

        1. Scrape Quora Questions
        2. 5 New questions with X keyword
        3. Pupeteer launches - signs in, leaves a comment

        Just depends on the experiments I was running at the time. I've made a ton of them over time.

  19. 1

    One day, around 7 years ago, I decided to learn Rust and wrote a tool to manage my Chromecast devices. Funnily enough, I still use it to this day: https://github.com/azasypkin/rust-cast

    Another thing that I initially wrote to solve my own needs and then released to a broader public for free is https://azbyte.xyz. I have a bunch of ETFs in my personal portfolio and want to know how much I'm invested in particular companies (as it turned out, many ETFs have intersections in their holdings). Nowadays, I use it mostly to figure what ETFs include specific company.

  20. 1

    I built a web scrapping application for myself , that identifies article from any website and just keeps the article text in a text file.
    I believe most of us have written their own python packages and hosted it on some package distribution service and now are using it regularly.

  21. 1

    The product I am building right now started as a tool I wrote for myself. As an engineer, I hated the time it took to build decent UI so I started building a visual editor that will write my react code for me. Soon my developer and designer friends also found it useful and couple weeks ago I started building this full-time: http://reframe.so/demo

  22. 1

    I've written a few apps based on my platform (modelrunner.org) but the one I use the most if for taxes. I use it for myself and for my wife's business. I just download bank statements and load them with the app, every transaction gets automatically assigned to a specific tax category so I can do tax returns and quarterly statements with 1 click.

  23. 1

    I got tired of updating a dozen different google docs with notes from my 1:1s with direct and skip-level reports. I made https://app.oursails.com to scratch my own itch and help me focus on the important but not-urgent conversations that are important for me and my team members. I've been using it for 6 months now - without telling my reports to use it - and it saves me so much headache in keeping track of discussions so that we actually have them.

  24. 1

    Yes

    I've built an app to find customers of the same app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bird-search/id1593852437

    Story:
    I've built a search app for Twitter users who are talking about twitter advanced search. So basically I created a search queries in my app to find my potential customers.

    -----

    I've built an app around decluttering mac desktop https://zenmode.carrd.co/
    Previously as a PM, juggling between windows is too hard so what if there is a one click button to declutter the desktop.

  25. 1

    During covid times I had built a small script in python to notify ( ring a bell ) whenever there was a slot vacancy in my area.
    It hardly took a couple of hours and happy to say I successfully booked 2 slots for my family using this script. :)

  26. 1

    I don't build software that I wouldn't use myself.

    I feel it gives me a massive advantage and most importantly I want the problem solved in a particular way and solutions don't exist.

    Here's what I've built so far if anyone is interested.

    1. The #1 way for creative musicians to capture their new ideas.
    2. Manage your time your way
  27. 1

    No, Mostly worked on the commercial software and for the companies projects.

  28. 1

    Yes, even a few :) unfortunately, most of them have never seen the light

  29. 1

    I found my current home thanks to an RPA bot that scrapes all listings and automatically replied to interesting properties.

  30. 1

    I wrote a web server to index my markdown notes, so I can search note content more easily (by title, tags, dates etc).

  31. 1

    If I can't use my own software, then it's not worth it. I usually write tools to automate things or make things easier for my work. If it's not usable it dies in my code or old laptop. Means it didn't pass my standard.

  32. 1

    I wrote a messenger chat bot that would send me a trending song from Bandcamp every day. It was a great music discovery tool I used for years!

    1. 1

      Wow that's a great idea for people that want to keep up with music.

  33. 1

    I build a habit tracker for myself in February because I couldn't find any with a minimalist interface.

    I also wanted to have a "grid" of habits completions over the year ( like the GitHub contributions)

    Users loved it, so I followed my creativity and turned it into a game.

    It's now partially paying for my rent 🤩

    Revenue is open & verified by Stripe on my profile if you're curious

  34. 1

    Put your mind at ease with questions you have in your mind. Sometimes just gaining insights can remove the anxiety and the tension from your situation: https://www.krisallis.com/clarity-readings

  35. 1

    A personal finance app, because of trust issues regarding Mintuit...
    clearmoney.io

  36. 1

    A couple bash scripts, some scripts that automate my highly personalized CI/CD workflow on git, another which automates pretty much everything I do with firebase CLI and some crude CSS stylesheets that bring back the sanity of sans-serif over the web for me.

  37. 1

    Started ruttl.com with the hope to solve my own problem but I've now launched it to the world!

  38. 1
    1. Raspberry Pi controlled fountain fillers (we have a fountain in front and in back; this lets me give the fountain 1, 3, 5, 10 etc. minutes of water.

    2. Arduino-powered Enchanted Rose with falling petals that I built for my daughter's Beauty and the Beast performance a few years ago: https://www.stevemurch.com/build-your-own-enchanted-rose-prop/2018/02

    3. Self-running Photo Booth for a party: https://www.stevemurch.com/build-a-photo-booth-for-your-next-party/2019/12

  39. 1

    Yes, https://bestelectricalbikes.com/- At the point when I begin dealing with another web project, I need genuine models for various site components. Looking and checking sites myself is very tedious, this web takes care of this issue.

  40. 1

    An inventory web app to keep track of my electronic components for tinkering with microcontrollers and such. Connects to a Dymo Labelwriter using their JS SDK and prints labels for the components (incl QR code that links to a page with more info about the item, such as stock count and tech sheets).

    I must have built over a dozen apps for personal use over the past 25 years. From scraping recipes from a single site and creating a pretty PDF for them, to personal finance management. In hindsight, some of them could have made a fine startup :)

  41. 1

    I wasn't happy with existing apps that track Amazon prices and I ended up to create my own app for Android and iOS: Reprice Amazon price tracker.
    The main difference is the focus on easyness and usability with other apps, which I find not so user friendly and easy.

    1. 1

      Amazing idea. Have you developed such app so that we can also buy from you. As we need it for https://apkranch.com/big-bash-cricket-mod-apk/ . If it is completed so kindly share with us so we can buy it for our self.

    2. 1

      I also created an app about homemade Pizza and Bread that I use it every week. It helps me in calculating ingredients and to keep tracks of my improvements since I can save photos and notes.

  42. 1

    I built a very simple command-line tool to extract text from an image. I built it during PTE exam preparation when I can't copy the text from learning materials.

  43. 1

    I actually have created a secure file sharing app for my home, It allows us to share files with family members easily and securely as only people connected to same wifi can share or use this app.

    It is really useful as there are no delays and transfers are super fast.
    other than that I have also created some bots or automations for personal use, want to know?

  44. 1

    Passwords and notes manager - https://zxbase.com

  45. 1

    Yep, actually, I went too far with the last one that I decided to try it converting it to a SaaS. I was struggling with my 0 followers account on Twitter so I needed some way to make easier the task of growing my account, so I created a tool for getting AI suggestions for replying to other's tweets and engaging easier and also for viral tweet rephrasing, I haven't 't accomplished my goal yet, but I'm confident :D

  46. 1

    Most of the software that I write for myself is focused on automation .

    • Open all of the browser tabs that I use for work
    • Create a PR and automatically associate it to Jira while also moving the ticket to code review
    • Add recurring tasks to my todo list every monthly
    • Invoice sending
  47. 1

    I've been building https://interactlist.com for a little while now, I use it every day! A colleague also used it with his ebook Landing Page Hot Tips

  48. 1

    I built a nifty little app to generate multiple QR and Barcodes at once in a zip which i needed to solve something at work. Found there was one online tool that worked for QRCodes but didn't fit to my needs at the time.

    Check It out here . Its free

    https://qrbarcodetools.com

  49. 1

    I usually start off each of my projects because of a thing I wanted to solve. Often because I had tried apps that other people had made, and they were just not it. Or it was missing some portion that I really wanted. Like my latest project (which is a bookmark manager) can send email reminders to myself to help remind me of certain bookmarks/links I want to read later

  50. 1

    I listen to Audible and have a huge library, and I like to crunch the numbers. But Audible doesn't provide a way to extract a list of titles and book lengths from your library. So I wrote a scraper to do that and return it as json or csv. I put it out there just in case someone else wants to use it. ❤️👂📚

    https://www.themodernnomad.com/audible-statistics-extractor/

  51. 1

    While my wife was in labor with our daughter, I wrote a contractions tracker app.

  52. 1

    I've built many such small utility tools.
    One of them is this Chrome Extension - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-last-week/agfmoihfopdjjdnmphleepajkdbeobal?hl=en.

    When installed, it sets itself as the default page when I open a new browser tab.
    Every time I open a new tab, it reminds me that my time is limited. I need to make the best use of my time to do good things.

  53. 1

    My wife and I use a collaborative TODO list app I wrote a few years ago to do our shopping: https://github.com/AppMini/todoMini

    I try to keep it front of mind because it's a good reminder that sometimes the simplest piece of software is the one that gets used the most.

  54. 1

    I have built cost estimation software for pulumi infrastructure code.
    I have this website to gather interest https://cloudcostify.app/

  55. 1

    I would say I built https://xposter.io for my personal use, that I decided to monetize.

    I suck at doing things that take time that I don't care to do, so cross posting content in a click helped me actually do it.

  56. 1

    I wrote an app that scrapes Wiktionary (and other places) to help me survive with Polish.

    I got tired of opening one tab for a translation, one for the declination, one for the examples, and one for the images.

    That’s why I developed an app that shows me all of those in one query.

    I’m the only user and it makes 0 dollars. But it’s one of the most useful things I did for myself!

  57. 1

    I created a flash card site to help me learn Chinese characters.
    https://www.chineseflashcardsonline.com/

    1. 1

      Chinese is great. I wonder if anyone else is using this tool.

      1. 1

        As of now, I would guess no. I only created the site earlier this week. I hope I can get some other people to use it though. I honestly think it's a much better flash card site than the other options out there.

  58. 1

    Yes, I have written a small extension for Firefox that enabled me to hide LinkedIn’s feed. Unfortunately I didn’t even bother packaging it into a distributable extension.

  59. 1

    When I first started and had my first Windows htc device I made an app to track my fuel efficiency. That was pretty involved in 2004/2005.

    Now I'm more apt to just do some quick automations in Zapier. Like today I created a way to add a buffer appointment for only certain calendar entries. Took 3 mins. The use case is I'm managing some family member's medical appointments and I add it to my personal calendar but have to also make sure no one books me 45 mins +/- the appointment time .

  60. 1

    Made a small automation script that takes JSON input and executes the automation sequence. It will be a good project in itself if I add a GUI.

    Made it for lead generation but it is dynamic and can execute any action.

    Currently doing this:

    • scrape leads from LinkedIn search
    • try to find their email
    • send data to lemlist
  61. 1

    I built a package for backing & restore the firebase firestore database & published it to NPM. Now it has ~ 3k downloads / week

    https://www.npmjs.com/package/firestore-export-import

  62. 1

    I build a personal metrics dashboard using Apple Health -> iOS Shortcuts -> Node-RED -> Google Sheets -> Google Data Studio.

    I run it on a home server (old hp laptop) and display it with a raspberry pi attached to a vertical monitor in my bedroom.

    It wasn't actually that painful to set up and Node-RED helped a lot.

    If people are interested I could do a short writeup on how to get everything working!

  63. 1

    When i started the https://changelogfy.com was for use on my previous company https://boaconsulta.com, that was sold 1 year ago.

  64. 1

    I launched the development of https://kpicrunch.com 12 weeks ago because of all the frustration I had accumulated using fragmented (expensive) tools to analyse competitive landscapes. Here's a quick sneak peek behind the scenes: https://youtu.be/uUtfRq1c-3k - At this stage, I'm the one & only user ;-) Opening to the public in June.

  65. 1

    I've built segro.app for personal use. Use it every single day for both making invoices, planning ahead and reflecting.

  66. 1

    I had to help a lot of junior developers, and had to switch git branches a billion times a day, so I wrote this little tool, it helped me to switch back to the branches I had already visited faster than remembering.

  67. 1

    The produts I tested the market with were built for my personal usage at first. Then made them freely available, and then I gave a try to promote those who seemed to get some traction. Few of them are making money now. Others are helping me to promote the paid products, but all of them were build initial for my personal usage.

  68. 1

    I've built something for me & for others. An open source note taking web application which stores the notes to user's github repository.

    https://github.com/vivekweb2013/gitnoter

  69. 1

    Yes. In the past I built financial triangulation opportunity finder, and I also built some tools to help with my trading in the financial markets.

  70. 1

    My co-founders and I built magic links but not just for sign ups. We had a problem in a previous company where onboarding users through marketing emails was the hardest because each time they clicked the CTA they would drop off because they hit an auth wall (forced to sign up or login in order to claim the discount/promotion)

    So we turned our magic links into a use-case built approach and built this https://www.ezid.io/use-case/outbound-email-marketing

    We launched a month or so ago and already have power users using this.

  71. 1

    Not exactly written software, but I've built this Coda Doc because common to-do apps don't have routines built and focus music built in.

  72. 1

    I wrote a timelapse screen recorder. Used it once or twice.

  73. 1

    Yes, I wrote a lot of scripts. The deployment scripts I ship with Deployment from Scratch I use too. Or here are examples how I use Ruby to build the book. Long time ago I started a tandem app in my student city just that I can find a tandem (my brother had and I didn't hah) :).

  74. 1

    Yes. It was first in 2019. I built a C++ program to resolve quadratic equations instantly. It was a success. So I was going to extend it into an app that solves complex mathematical equations. But unfortunately, I gave up on the project when my PC crashed.

    Now, I'm building Aisely. Aisely lets freelancers, professionals and small business owners create and share excellent professional and on-brand transactional documents within minimal time. I started building it because I wanted to produce an outstanding professional invoice effortlessly and within a minute. And there was just no app that would get me what I wanted exactly, especially within such minimal time. Now, we've pretty much progressed with Aisely. And we're still building. Wish us good luck!

  75. 1

    Coding for myself happens all the time:

    • small scripts to automate recurring tasks
    • plugin here, plugin there to pimp open source applications I use
    • small APIs to connect applications and data
    • analytical dashboards for data visualization
    • etc.
  76. 1

    Yes my current business is what I created for personal use. I am a college student so to save my time reading my assignments I created this app that can read aloud my assignments or documents for me. Since then my life has been so much easier.

  77. 1

    Once I made achievement board for my son. Tap achievement button everyday (like go to kindergarten, stay with good feeling etc.). And can level up by achieved count.

  78. 1

    Just wrote a CLI tool to monitor async tasks run in the background on my servers.
    https://github.com/Arham-Aalam/celmon

  79. 1

    I am building vadelabs.com for my personal use. I have always got many requests from people to help them build applications. I always find myself with time crunch to help as many people as possible. Vade Studio is my attempt to make it possible.

  80. 1

    Yes.

    Being a solo entrepreneur , you tend to get overwhelmed working on your product and managing finances. It was super difficult to get a super simple online accounting software that would manage sales and expenses in the most efficient and automatic way. So I build one 😃

    The product is @pesatime (www.pesatime.com) - A smart and super simple accounting software for small businesses and freelancers.

    I ended up revamping the app and recently launched it as a SAAS product.

    You can give it a try 😀

  81. 1

    I've built a minimal CRM for personal use to manage my eBay e-commerce business. The market back then didn't have any CRMs that provide webhook automation with eBay so I made my own.

  82. 1

    Totally. I wrote the code for Lifelog and I use it for my daily writing habit every single day. It's a great feeling to be creating a tool you use yourself, and 10x that if used every day.

  83. 1

    I built two products around that

    Track Gas Fee and Get Notified https://ethgas.carrd.co/
    Declutter your Macbook to avoid awkward situations http://zen-mode.carrd.co/

  84. 1

    So the answer is yes, and I've written more for myself than others (which is my problem lol).

    I have a custom desktop app built specifically to generate my markdown files to post to my GatsbyJS site. It changed my posting habits completely since I can now fill in some fields, content, and push.

    I also have a custom app for storing my FujiFilm XT-4 film presets, this one will go public eventually.

    Along with these, I have other tools for things to just save me time on repetitive tasks and so that I don't have to remember a bunch of things in favor of tools to do them for me.

  85. 1

    Oh sure.
    Finding names for them gets easier too after a while.

    LazyGIF - a desktop utility app for converting videos so they're shareable on Discord, etc. (supports drag-and-drop, users can choose the export framerate, resolution and speed to decrease the size even more. Me and a close friend are the only ones using it as of now.

    LazyCUT - a GUI desktop app for cutting videos in the most lazy way imaginable

    ChatRoom - an HTTP-polling based web chat UI (built with Python Flask. Just a fun project honestly). Code is too "ugly" to open source at the moment

    Epic Project Browser - A GUI for game developers using the Unreal Engine to help organize development projects. Born out of personal necessity. https://github.com/Problem-Solving-Agency-Zenahr-Barzani/Epic-Project-Browser (no source code at the moment because, again, "ugly"

    ALRPC - Apex Legends RP Calculator. A web UI calculator for an esports game be EA. zenahr.com/ALRPC

    HotRef - A cross-program hotkey reference UI inspired by PureRef. (For people constantly forgetting about hotkeys for program X, Y, Z). Still in the early works. If I could monetize this somehow I might even be able to spend serious dev time on it.

    Last5Mails - A simplified mail client showing me only the last 5 mails (because that's sometimes all that I care about)

    WorkTime - a simple UI I made while I was working as a PM at a company that would tell me a) how many hours I've worked the current week, b) how many hours I need to work per remaining day to reach my minimum working hours

    EasyRemoteShutdown - I use this nifty little desktop app to be able to turn my PC off from my phone (don't ask, ... I sometimes get really cozy and don't wanna get up again)

    MobileRemoteControl - Use your mobile phone as a remote control for watching YouTube. Background: while trying to learn dance choreographies I need to rewind/seek sections, slow down/speed up the video, etc. that's how this came to be

  86. 1

    I have a browser extension that I use to inject custom JS/CSS into various websites. For example, on iconmonstr it automatically checks the "I agree to the License Agreement" box, and then copies the SVG string I need to use the icon. On Google Analytics, it makes my graphs taller. Etc. It's a big time saver for me.

    1. 1

      I have been thinking of building the same thing for a while! Do you have yours published somewhere?

  87. 1

    I built an electron app to keep track of my company culture score each month. But you can use it to track a rating for whatever you want.

    • custom ranges (1 - 5, 0 - 10)
    • custom step (increase/decrease by x points)
    • custom starting rating
    • optional comment for each rating
  88. 1

    I built Workout Loop because I hated the experience of navigating the YouTube UI in the morning to start up a yoga video ;)

  89. 1

    super-simple-fucking-notepad.com (dead, forgot to renew domain lol)

    I was seeing "new" note-taking apps/website everyday and i found it extremely obnoxious. So as a joke i created my own website for doing just that. Used it for about a week. Nothing fancy, looked like a hacker terminal!

  90. 1

    Yes! I’ve build a tool to get all incoming invoices out of my gmail inbox in PDF form so I can pass those on to my accountant.

    I also build a tool to create Asana tasks from Figma comments which I use with my clients.

    Building your own tools is fun 😀

  91. 0

    The organization plans to concentrate on MBOs and big Shopping platforms. WWE may even have their own shops, the way they have in the UK, Dubai and China. <a href="https://grazeapk.com/wwe-2k20-apk/">wwe 2k20 game download for android</a> The fan following of WWE comes from small cities and Level II, III places. Hopefully WWE will be an important item in big shopping stores as well as e-commerce.

  92. 0

    Yeah, wrote a little program to do my work

    image.png

  93. 0

    I have written a lot of software to support the WBE Space for example I have written a virtual office software that integrates with slack. I called it Indie Offices, I even tried to make a SaaS out of it but no one wanted it XD We still use it on a daily basis

  94. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

  95. 4

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      It's funny how certain classes of software seem to just sell themselves. Evergreen SaaS ideas that there will always be a market for. Also, very nice execution!

      1. 1

        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

  96. 1

    This comment was deleted 6 months ago.

Trending on Indie Hackers
I spent $0 on marketing and got 1,200 website visitors - Here's my exact playbook User Avatar 41 comments Why Early-Stage Founders Should Consider Skipping Prior Art Searches for Their Patent Applications User Avatar 22 comments I built eSIMKitStore — helping travelers stay online with instant QR-based eSIMs 🌍 User Avatar 20 comments Codenhack Beta — Full Access + Referral User Avatar 20 comments Veo 3.1 vs Sora 2: AI Video Generation in 2025 🎬🤖 User Avatar 18 comments Day 6 - Slow days as a solo founder User Avatar 13 comments