Description: "I built a pure-Python security suite and a browser photo editor that never uploads your photos. Now I want to hear what YOU are proudest of."
Every developer has that one project.
Not the one with the most stars. Not the one that made money. The one you open at 2 AM, even when nothing is broken, just to look at it and think: "I actually built this."
I want to hear about yours. But I'll go first. 👇
🔐 Project #1: ATLOCK v5, a total security suite in a single Python file(packed in .exe)
It started as a simple question: how hard is it to build real, honest security tooling with nothing but Python?
Several rebuilds later, ATLOCK v5 is one file, 10,000+ lines, Windows-first, and it does things I never planned on day one:
- AES-256-GCM sealed containers with chunked authentication and key commitment
- Argon2id key derivation, benchmarked per machine so it's as strong as your hardware can afford
- Password vault with importers for Bitwarden, Chrome, Firefox, KeePass and 1Password
- File Guard with optional keyfile or hardware key, so a file needs your password and a second factor
- 2FA with TOTP and FIDO2 hardware keys (YubiKey and friends)
- Public-key encryption, signing and verifying, plus Shamir secret sharing for recovery keys
- A built-in fuzzer that throws random corruption at its own container parser, because I don't trust code I haven't tried to break
The part I'm proudest of isn't a feature. It's the honesty. The top of the source file literally says what ATLOCK can't do:
"A same-user attacker who can run code as you can modify this script and read this process's memory... they cannot stop a determined local attacker."
Security tools that promise "unbreakable" are lying. I'd rather you know the real threat model than trust me blindly.
👉 Download v5: ATLOCK_v5.zip
👉 Repo: github.com/Akhouri-Systems/ATLOCK
🎨 Project #2: APIC, a photo editor that never sees your photos
Most "free online photo editors" quietly upload your images to a server. I wanted the opposite.
APIC runs 100% in your browser. No upload. No signup. No account. Your photos never leave your device.
- ✂️ Background removal with on-device AI
- 🧽 Object removal
- 🎛️ Pro colour suite: curves, histogram, HSL, colour grading, LUT export
- 🔄 Convert, compress and resize (PNG, JPG, WebP and more)
- 📱 Tuned so it runs smoothly from budget phones to a MacBook
Recently I rebuilt the live preview so it floats beside your controls while you tweak sliders, big enough to judge portrait shots properly. Getting that to feel smooth on both a cheap Android and a desktop was a surprisingly deep rabbit hole.
👉 Try it free: APIC
just signup and you are ready to go with APIC.
🧠 What these two taught me
- Constraints are a feature. "One file" and "nothing leaves the browser" forced better architecture than any framework would have.
- Honesty beats hype. Documenting limitations earned more trust than any feature list.
- Performance is empathy. If it only runs well on your machine, you built it for yourself.
- Solo doesn't mean small. One person can ship something that feels like a product.
💬 Now it's your turn
Drop a comment. Any of these work:
- 🏆 What's the project, tool or company you're proudest of? Link it, I want to try it.
- 🔥 What was the hardest bug or decision along the way?
- 🧱 What would you rebuild from scratch if you could?
- 🌱 Haven't shipped yet? Tell us what you're building. This is a safe place to start.
Solo devs, founders, students, seniors, career-switchers: everyone's welcome. The best "I built this" stories are often from people who think theirs isn't impressive enough. It is.
I'll read and reply to every comment. 🙌
If you enjoyed this, follow me on GitHub and tell me what you'd want ATLOCK or APIC to do next. Your feedback literally shapes the next version.
Built by Akhouri Anmol Kumar, an Akhouri Systems product.
Top comments (91)
@effessdev discussion starts from here now.
Yup. I'll make sure this one never leaves active discussions. 👍
@effessdev & @akhourianmolkumar
broness peaked here 🖐️🤚🔥
Should we call Xulingfeng? For Xulingfeng effect? 😂
lol, but I think not overconfidence or offense to him but earlier my posts where just pure 100000% marketing and 1% post like this one..
but then I understand the concept by seeing others posts
and then I improved quality so I think I don't need @xulingfeng effect from now onwards thanks to 2 things -- 1 that I learned from mistakes and improved my post quality, 2 @effessdev always carrying my post in active discussions 🔥☠️
But you already called @xulingfeng...
thats why he says me sly guy
Makes sense 🤣👍💯
I have a feeling that this will go viral. We'll probably get some users.
woahh let's see till now my most viral post is show me your setup I will rate it out of 10.
Wait wait wait..... YOU HAD WRITTEN THIS MANY POSTS HERE?! I had never checked your posts! How many do you have? 🤯
check my profile then you will know.
131 BRO WHAT?
yeahh 🔥
Me still at 16 😭
I am like almost per day 1 post since the date I joined dev.to first time.
Impressive 😳😳😳
but in 16 you got badge of gem and me after 131: 💩
But that was for my comments not posts 😭
my peerlist streak: 113 days, dev.to- 104 days
and overall akhouri systems streakk
I created akhouri systems may 11, 2026
from may 11 to 18 october I'm proud to say that even 1 day I didn't missed to develop company.
You mean peerlist.io? But what is it?
it is what when you mix product hunt + dev.to
I signed up. Let me check... (username effessdev itself)
Why does it look like Bluesky?
ok bro lol you are dev and you are first time seeing peerlist.io
Yeah...!? Never heard of it...
!? <--- bro why you sometimes use this sign are you a chess.com player?
What?! 120 posts in Peetlist itself??! How are you getting this much time for everything??
Ah... I sometimes play chess.com 😅 But it's not related to that. I was just mixing an exclamation and a question.
bro to write post how much time you need 😏🤣
I can write dev.to, linkedin, peerlist all 3 post in 30minutes(yeah but if dev.to post is big like yesterday's post was then this time can go upto 45min) and also I use AI for linkedin posts so main hard work goes in dev.to and peerlist
I was also in chess.com but those idiots banned me for a reason that I was using hacks, but honestly I was not I don't know why.
Maybe you were too good for a 13 year old? 🤣
no no like in tech I'm way ahead than age 13 boys I admit but in chess.com I'm like a level where I can beat 800-900 ELO (I don't know why I chose this no. maybe because my rating before ban reached 700 and my grandfather was a Grand master so because of it I beleive I can beat 800-900 but then due to less time I left chess and when I thought to again play at least 1 match then in 1 week I got permanently banned.
Permanently??? That's too much.
🫡🔥☠️
I think now I've to admit that yeah I'm sly guy.
Wow you followed me on GitHub!!! Thanks!! 🫂🙏🎉
yeah, tit for tat 🤣
Thanks. Respect 🫡
😂
@koda2026 has uploaded a new post?
By the way, if we chat too long in this thread, it will come up first, and others won't be able to see comments related to the post. Is that an issue? What should we do?
Idk, and let me read new post of him.
I don't know what he is doing...
really
But he says you and he both built it?
nah, we don't
I'm just apposing him but he is using my name and creating softwares day by day
Oooh, stealing your brand? 😅
brand hahahahahha, he is still not in a state of worthiness to steal akhouri systems(no one is) but yeah using my name every where as CTO, Co-Founder
and I'm but if I'm then when I appose him then he is just ignoring me I think I should step down.
@akhourianmolkumar I added screen recording to GiffyPy and you'll be blown away when I show it! 🚚
like I blown you by APIC live priview and advanced section 😆
Yeah. 😂 Either way I am very proud of it... Just like you. So I should put it here?
yeah bro ship it, market it, even launch a brand 😂
I can share you my expertise even AKHOURI SYSTEMS X your brand can be done.
Haha 😅 Ok so shall we do a collab?
collab?
I added a "package.bat" script. anyone can download the source code, just run the script, and have it on their machine.
You said AKHOURI SYSTEMS X I thought you meant a collab 😂
no Like I meant a permanent partnered pact
like brands used to do, special partners...
Oh... How does that work?
I'm thinking because in partnership companies share technology promote each other but I can see clearly without even partnership pact in just broness we both are doing all 😂
Yeah 😅 But what's the benefit of that? I mean partnership?
idk
Anyway I'll be showing "sponsored by Akhouri Systems" anyway. Is that ok?
yeah yeah ok ok 👌
Bro please fix this (redirect to your website). It takes less than a few minutes.
BROO I've till now not fixed it.
it is still old url
That's ok. I only need a redirect to the old URL :(
and bro you are really CTO anytime using APIC, anytime trying to search akhouri systems 🫡
even your linkedin profile 🖐️🤚
Yeah LinkedIn profile 😂
I just want to type the shorter name. And you should add more links to the Akhouri Systems website (like the repositories of the products in case the user need more information like screenshots). Currently there is only a download link.
Re: akhouri-anmol-kumar.github.io/
Yeah that was a stupid request 😬 I didn't think about that redirect (I knew it but I didn't think about it)
@akhourianmolkumar GiffyPy v1.4.0 has been released with the link to Akhouri Systems! It was such a pain to fix the screen recording (it only failed in the EXE, not while running
main.pydirectly). I had to use Claude.ai to rewrite the screen recording module to finally fix it. I also added acreate_shortcut.batscript, which is really handy. For people who don't trust running EXEs directly, I have improved the package script so you can simply download the source code from the release, unzip it, and double-clickpackage.batso it builds everything for you!Note: The above WebP file was made entirely using GiffyPy (recording, editing, and export included)
🫡
bro honestly saying you can market it as beta just to test and gain feedbacks but the current version is not a final product it really needs more
but nice jump from the previous ones.
Yeah. The current version is not the final product 💯 What are the issues?
mainly the UI, and screen recording button should be minimal type bro also indicating that recording is on is very weak and hard to notice lol I started recording but after 9 seconds of looking here and there realised yeah recording is on, and really bro I can give you 20+ UI stuffs needed to make it a shippable product..(not good because for that based on current ones we would really need a lot because your field is video ones that's why although I've not experience of building video editing tool but as Founder & CEO @ Akhouri Systems & creator of APIC and ATLOCK_V5 like technical products I may contribute to your app a lot like you done for APIC Web)
The problem is that whenever i touch a single part of the UI it breaks somewhere else. But let me try again tomorrow. Me too first time building a video editor.
hmm, we can build it, I will give you the best feedbacks possible on planet earth ☠️
"we build what others forgot to fix"
I'm currently upgrading APIC Web so that I can give you some surprise tomorrow
it's my guarantee you will remove photopea from bookmarks.
because I know what I've done in APIC just now.
WebForms Core
Demo link: webforms-core.github.io/demo/
Be sure to try this technology!
bro can you please explain what it is?
WebForms Core (WFC) is a server-orchestrated UI technology developed by Elanat and available for all popular web programming languages. In WFC, the server is stateless and does not render the UI. Instead, it sends commands that are executed on the client to manipulate the HTML DOM.
WFC consists of two main components:
How to set it up
<head>section of your HTML page.Once set up, you can manage and manipulate your HTML page from the server using the WebForms class.
hmm, I asked for what it is and then got a free how to set it up lol, whatever AI you used to write this reply is very smart.
It might be a bad habit, since I have AI rewrite everything I write!
Here is what I wrote myself:
WebForms Core (WFC) is a server-orchestrated UI technology developed by Elanat, available for all popular web programming languages. In this technology, the server is stateless and does not perform rendering.
WFC consists of two components:
1- The WebForms class on the server.
2- The WebFormsJS library on the client.
How to set it up?
1- Add the WebForms class to your backend, corresponding to your chosen programming language.
2- Include the WebFormsJS library in the
<head>section of your HTML file.Manage your HTML page using the WebForms class on the server
Sly guy 😭
bro in this how I became sly guy
I have got two:
My small OS kernel and cxgrd
bro bro bro you just dropped 2 projects ❌ you dropped 2 beasts ✅
bro a small OS kernel? are you kidding me 🫨. and bro what's cxgrd based on the website you provided I can understand that it reduces chance of AI coding agents to break the code? like less chance of break errors?
Exactly bro. cxgrd builds dependency graph of your entire codebase, and determines the blast radius of the change you wish to implement. This way, AI agents will know which files are critically affected and it will focus on these files to avoid breaking code
I always wanted this repo! Starred it 🌟
bro small OS kernel 🖐️🤚🔥
dev.to is really a community of great individuals this is proof of that.
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