Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#1

Post by lellow » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 1:58 PM UTC

With the cost of building software continuing to drop, what have you found yourself doing more: using other people's software, or building it yourself?

I was thinking about this... I've built our family's financial system (it started as a simple budgeting tool, but now it tracks everything), a Mac app to create and edit videos, quite a few developer tools for personal use, a bunch of apps for my kids, some games, and so forth.

All of these already have plenty of commercial offerings in the market, and some have open-source alternatives, but the level of personalization I get by building them myself beats any argument (IMHO)!

Interested to see what others are doing. :)

PS: I've been writing software for 8 years (5 of them professionally).

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#2

Post by fco356pal » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

Been writing code for 15 years. Now, I spent all my time defining specs, creating tests, and validating Claude’s/ChatGPT code (not reviewing, but validating with tests). The speed of development and quality of code is just amazing.

Doesn’t mean I don’t use existing code. In fact, LLMs tend to be great at finding existing libraries and reviewing potential sources should always be part of your prompt. Writing code from scratch is good for prototyping, but existing libraries tend to be much more robust and battle tested

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#3

Post by softwaredoug » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

In some ways I'm building too much software. It's too easy to get distracted by vibe coding a replacement for some SaaS I rely on. Only to have it be an 80% solution, without polish, and weeks later I'm back to just using the SaaS.

It's never been easier to get nerdsniped into silly work.

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#4

Post by theflyinghorse » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 3:25 PM UTC

I built a screen recorder for myself with LLMs. A calorie tracker. Now building this everything-webframework in Odin that's inspired heavily by BEAM's ideas (its a creative process for me, I don't have an end goal in mind)

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#5

Post by boveyking » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

I have built software for about 20 years, but most for customers. At that time, stackoverflow was our go to place. I did not visit stackoverflow for years now.

It is really possible to build software by one person. I have built 2 software recently. One is debate platform for high schooler. One is essay inspiration web app. Both for my son.

It was impossible to built with IDE manually in such short time.

We usually love OOP( Object Oriented Programming), now, we are almost becomes YOP( Yes Oriented Programming.)

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#6

Post by fullstick » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

So many, probably pumping out 2-3 apps per month. I sometimes I'll make one that serves a purpose for one weekend. Or answers one question. Others I use every day.

Calorie tracker. Orienteering map generator. Help me track different loops for a 12 hour endurance race. A photo pixel location to paper canvas location in cm tool. Finding the geographic center of countries to settle a debate. Password generator. P2P webrtc texting app. Games. Ways to interact with my art. My personal website and more

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#7

Post by lellow » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

boveyking wrote: post #5

I have built software for about 20 years, but most for customers. At that time, stackoverflow was our go to place. I did not visit stackoverflow for years now. It is really possible to build software by one person. I have built 2 software recently. One is debate platform for high schooler. One is essay inspiration web app. Both for my son. It was impossible to built with IDE manually in such short time. We usually lo…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#8

Post by boveyking » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

theflyinghorse wrote: post #4

I built a screen recorder for myself with LLMs. A calorie tracker. Now building this everything-webframework in Odin that's inspired heavily by BEAM's ideas (its a creative process for me, I don't have an end goal in mind)

what is BEAM's ideas?

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#9

Post by theflyinghorse » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

boveyking wrote: post #8

theflyinghorse wrote: post #4

I built a screen recorder for myself with LLMs. A calorie tracker. Now building this everything-webframework in Odin that's inspired heavily by BEAM's ideas (its a creative process for me, I don't have an end goal in mind)

what is BEAM's ideas?

The big ones for me are the actor processes sending each other messages, distributed processes where you can connect several nodes to each other very seamlessly and the processes within them communicate seemlessly! I’m not looking to rebuild OTP, I’m simply exploring ideas I couldn’t before

Re: Ask HN: How much software do you build for yourself these days?

#10

Post by kypro » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

While everyone is building more, I've found the amount of software I build now has dropped off a cliff. I haven't produced this little code since I was a young teen 25 something years ago.

I used to love building software which required solving difficult algorithmic problems then presenting it in a nice UX.

All the things I used to enjoy doing has become trivial for modern LLMs to the point where it's a pointless pursuit. I used to like spending days doing intense research and learning, then weeks working on challenging algorithmic problems, then at the end I could wrap it all in a fun UI.

I guess I could still do the UI bit, but there's just so many other creative, difficult and rewarding stuff I could be doing with my time now...