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hudy9x
hudy9x

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I built a free, open-source project manager that helps teams keep costs under $15/month.

Hi everyone, Hudy here!

Today, I'm excited to share my open-source project manager with you all. I built this from the ground up with the goal of keeping operational costs under $15 per month.

Before I deciding to build it, I tried Trello, Jira and Clickup. All of them are fantastic tools, but the cost was a major barrier for us. As a small team of 7 - 10 members at a Vietnamese startup, we simply didn't have the budget for these paid platforms.

You might be wondering why we didn't just use the free tier. Here's the thing: I believed I could build a project manager that offered the specified features we needed, like Reports, Exporting capabilities, Boards, Calendars and more.

Additionally, I had a significant amount of free time at that point, which made it a good opportunity to take on this project.

I open-source this app on github: https://github.com/hudy9x/namviek or you can check out the website namviek.com

Who is this for ?

This project is a great fit for people with developer skills who are running a small team on a limited budget, similar to me.

It might seen daunting at first, but see the cost report below. I was able to significantly reduce the operational cost from $49 per month ($7 x 7 member) to less than $10 per month.

Amazon Cost

How did I keep the cost low ?

I leveraged a variety of free platforms to minimize operational costs. Here's a breakdown:

  • Vercel: for the frontend (Free)
  • Aws Lightsail: for the backend (Paid)
  • Aws S3: for file storage (Paid)
  • Resend: sending email (Free)
  • Cloudflare: to manage my domain (Free)
  • Github Action: CD automation (Free)

My Tech Stack

To ensure fast building and deployment, I opted for Next.js on the frontend as it seamlessly integrates with Vercel. For the backend, I currently use Node.js, but I have plans to migrate some funtionalities to Golang in the comming future.

What features are packed in ?

As mentioned before, this app includes some essential features for a small team such as:

List view

See it all at once. Prioritize and manage your tasks in a simple list.

List view

Board view

Visualize your workflow. Move tasks between stages for clear progress tracking.

Board view

Goal view

Stay on target. See your progress at a glance and celebrate milestones.

Goal view

Calendar view

Plan your days. Never miss a deadline with tasks scheduled on your calendar.

Calendar view

Custom view

Work your way. Design the perfect view to fit your specific needs.

View customization

How to use it.

Check out the setup guide. If you encounter any errors during the setup process, you can refer to the full guide here.

Maybe you prefer a step by step video guide? Check out this video below:

Contribute your features or bug fixes

This app is still under development, and I welcome your contributions to improve it! Feel free to submit feature requests and bug fixes.

Want to suggest a better solution or a code base refactoring? Just create a pull request and I'd be happy to discuss it.

Conclusion

Finally, I hope this open-source helps you and your team reduce operational costs while offering the opportunity to learn new skills by fixing bugs and building features. It will always be free to use.

See you in the next open-source app :D

Top comments (88)

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themuneebh profile image
Muneeb Hussain • Edited

You can reduce more on cost by utilizing Cloudflare more by using R2 for storage and Cloudflare workers for the backend with Hono

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

Thanks for your suggestion. I will add R2 support into the app.

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jojomondag profile image
Josef Nobach

This is cool. Will look this up next year with my students. Do you have a open repo for this project?

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x
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jojomondag profile image
Josef Nobach

Cool thx!

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc • Edited

Image description

Hello, after running the backend and frontend, when I go to the login screen and enter my account and password like the clip, I get this error, I don't know what the error is.

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

I see you're using Windows, so please run these following command before starting the app:
1/ generate schema

$ yarn generate
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2/ push schema to the mongodb database

$ yarn pushdb
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3/ create a user

$ yarn seed user
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P/S: if you run these command already, but still got the error. Please run the 1/ command again. And go to MongoDB Atlas to check whether admin user has created or not.

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc

Image description
Thank you for your reply, there is already a user on mongoDB but I don't understand why I still get the above login error, please help me.

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

Please double check the connection string.

Error shown

The error shown above tell you that: " Error creating a database connection. " That means your MONGODB_URL might be incorrect.

Open up the .env file and go to Mongodb Atlas > Connect to view your domain.

Connect section

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc

Hello, I tried to do exactly the same as yours and my mod is also the same, it has already added the user so it will be the right link, right, but I still get this error. Please check

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

Please replace your username and password and try the following connection:

MONGODB_URL=mongodb+srv://{user}:{pwd}@cluster0.mns2bti.mongodb.net/demodb?retryWrites=true&w=majority
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I removed the appName search param

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc

mongodb+srv://demoHuyTran:PV9kFXHfZEGmKhPL@cluster0.mns2bti..../demodb?retryWrites=true&w=majority
This is my url, it's the same as yours and it still has the same error as above, hope you have a solution

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x • Edited

after replacing the connection string, you should re-run this command again:

$ yarn generate 
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then restart the backend and try again.

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc • Edited

Hi, please try to check. I can record a clip if you have free time. Please check this error for me. Thank you
drive.google.com/file/d/1xzPlgkgbu...

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

It's wierd :))
Your connection string works well for me bro

MONGODB_URL=mongodb+srv://demoHuyTran:PV9kFXHfZEGmKhPL@cluster0.mns2bti.mongodb.net/demodb?retryWrites=true&w=majority
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I just replace yours to mine and re-generate the schema.
So, please join my discord server I want to see all of your settings

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc

Please let me go to the disco

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc

Image description
Please let me go to the disco

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huy_trnc_bd2b79682737 profile image
Huy Trần Đắc

Please give me the discord link

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x
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timexpeachtree profile image
Timex Peachtree

P.S. not to be the paranoid person but please don't share connection string on comments 🙏🏽, their might be invisible 🎩 blackhats harvesting it, having an access. They will like to have access to your growth 🥶

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biswas_khayargoli profile image
Biswas Khayargoli

nobody cares actually

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schemetastic profile image
Schemetastic (Rodrigo)

Hey! So basically this is an open source host-yourself productivity app for teams?

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

Yes, It is bro.

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schemetastic profile image
Schemetastic (Rodrigo)

Hey! I use Product Hunt, and X (Twitter) reach me out if you decide to create a product launch.

You may also be interested to add it to platforms such as PikaPods, Railway and elestio

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swapnilxi profile image
Swapnil Gupta

Great work

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menoscharla profile image
Fran

Great project, very inspiring your code, thanks for sharing!

When you mention the costs, do you really get a free domain with Cloudflare? How do you do it?

Thank you!

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

No, I bought a domain on namecheap

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awalhossain profile image
Awal Hossain

Thank you for open-sourcing this incredible project. Your dedication and generosity are truly inspiring. Keep up the fantastic work 🚀

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avijit_chattopadhyay_7af5 profile image
Avijit CHATTOPADHYAY

This is cool. I got it working on my Windows PC. However, I was wondering if the Mongodb database be on my local environment. Appreciate your answer.

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

My team have been working on this. Soon we'll commit the docker version for local use. Watch our repo or discord server

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sam_kh_f9b690d90dde463b9b profile image
Sam Kh

This is awesome, I was looking for aomething like this.

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jimzzzz profile image
Jimmy

good job, bro. I also have a small team, we're using GitHub project to manage the tasks, i think it doesn't have Goal View and Calendar View, therefore your product is very nice.

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hudy9x profile image
hudy9x

Thanks for your comment. As a team leader, do you think the app should integrate Github to sync PR or issues ? I'd love to here from you.

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