Why I Stopped Building a Generic Link-in-Bio Tool (And Started Over)

WaseemAnjum — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 04:37:07 +0000

A few months ago I went down the classic indie-hacker rabbit hole: "link-in-bio" tools. You've seen them — Linktree, Beacons, a dozen clones. A vertical stack of pill-shaped buttons on a phone screen. I figured it'd be a quick weekend build: auth, a drag-to-reorder list, a public page, done.

Then I actually looked at who uses these pages.

A wedding photographer's bio link and a Solidity developer's bio link were, structurally, the exact same page. Same layout. Same type scale. Same "add a block" mental model. The only thing that changed between a musician, a doctor, and a SaaS founder was the hex code on the buttons.

That felt wrong. A photographer's first impression should probably be a portfolio grid, not a list of hyperlinks. A developer's page should probably look like it was made by someone who ships code, not someone who picked a template. A doctor's booking page needs to read as trustworthy in about half a second, not "creative."

The idea: ask the profession first

So I rebuilt the whole thing around one decision at signup: what do you do?

Cladly asks that up front, then hands you a "skin" — not a color theme, an actual different layout, typography system, motion, and set of starter link types built for that craft:

Terminal (developers): dark, monospace, repo-and-changelog friendly
Atelier (designers): portfolio-first, editorial grid, big imagery
Encore (musicians): cover art hierarchy, listen/stream buttons, tour dates
Rounds (doctors/clinicians): sober palette, trust signals, booking front and center

There are 14 of these right now, and the goal isn't "more themes," it's fewer wrong defaults. If you're a developer, you shouldn't have to fight a template built for a lifestyle influencer to make your page look credible.

What was actually hard to build

The interesting engineering problem wasn't the link list — it was making "skin" a first-class concept instead of a CSS variable swap. Each skin owns its own layout primitives, spacing scale, and animation choices, but they all still read from the same underlying content model, so switching skins doesn't lose your data. That separation (content vs. presentation vs. profession-specific layout logic) ended up being most of the actual architecture work.

The second thing was analytics without the usual tracking-pixel tax. Every bio-link click is a "first touch" moment, often from someone who's never seen your domain before — I didn't want to make that experience worse by dropping third-party trackers on it. So views, clicks, CTR, top links, and peak hours are all computed server-side from the request itself, no pixel, no cookie banner required for basic stats.

Where it's at

It's free to start — one page, unlimited links, five skins, 7-day analytics — because the whole premise (profession-aware defaults) only proves itself if enough different kinds of people actually try it. Pro adds the rest of the skins, AI-assisted setup, and longer analytics history.

If you manage a personal brand, a portfolio, or a team's bio page and you've been mildly annoyed that every one of these tools makes you look like everyone else, I'd genuinely like your feedback: cladly.bio — takes about three minutes to get a page live.

Happy to answer questions about the skin architecture, the analytics pipeline, or the roadmap in the comments.

🎥 Building a Scalable Social Media Video Downloader: Open Source NestJS + Next.js Project

WaseemAnjum — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:56:39 +0000

🚀 Introducing Social Media Video Downloader

Hey DEV community! 👋 I'm excited to share my latest open-source project: a full-stack video downloader solution that lets you download videos from major social media platforms with enterprise-grade features.

🎯 What's Special About This Project?

Unlike typical video downloaders, this project offers:

Enterprise-Grade Security: API key authentication, rate limiting, IP whitelisting
Multiple Platform Support: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter
Modern Stack: NestJS backend + Next.js 14 frontend
Real-Time Progress: Live download progress tracking
Type Safety: Full TypeScript support
Automatic Dependencies: Self-managing binary dependencies

🛠️ Tech Stack

Backend (NestJS)

TypeScript
PostgreSQL with Prisma
yt-dlp integration
Swagger API docs
Rate limiting
CORS protection

Frontend (Next.js 14)

Modern UI with dark/light theme
Server-side rendering
Real-time progress updates
Responsive design
TypeScript

✨ Features Breakdown

Video Platforms Support

YouTube: Videos, playlists, shorts
Facebook: Public/private videos, stories
Instagram: Posts, reels, IGTV
TikTok: Videos without watermark
Twitter: Tweets, spaces recordings

Download Options

Quality selection (up to 4K)
Format conversion
Audio extraction
Custom output paths
Progress tracking

Security Features

API key authentication
Rate limiting
IP whitelisting
Download duration limits
Usage analytics

🚀 Quick Start

Backend Setup

# Clone the backend
git clone https://github.com/your-username/social-media-video-downloader-api
cd social-media-video-downloader-api

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Setup environment
cp .env.example .env

# Start development server
pnpm run start:dev

Frontend Setup

# Clone the frontend
git clone https://github.com/fabwaseem/Social-Media-Video-Downloader
cd Social-Media-Video-Downloader

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Setup environment
echo "NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:3001" > .env.local

# Start development server
pnpm dev

🎨 Screenshots

[Add your application screenshots here]

🔧 Architecture Overview

The project follows a clean, modular architecture:

Backend                          Frontend
┌─────────────┐                ┌─────────────┐
│   API Layer │◄───REST API────│    Next.js  │
├─────────────┤                ├─────────────┤
│  Services   │                │    React    │
├─────────────┤                ├─────────────┤
│   Prisma    │                │    State    │
└─────────────┘                └─────────────┘

🤝 Contributing

This project is open source and welcomes contributions! Here's how you can help:

🍴 Fork the repositories
🔧 Create your feature branch
💻 Add your features
🔍 Test your changes
📤 Create a Pull Request

🎯 Future Plans

[ ] Add more platform support
[ ] Implement batch downloading
[ ] Add download scheduling
[ ] Create browser extension
[ ] Add more output formats
[ ] Implement user dashboard

🔗 Links

💡 Why I Built This

I created this project to provide a robust, enterprise-grade solution for video downloading that's both secure and scalable. The existing solutions either lacked security features or weren't suitable for production use.

🌟 Show Your Support

If you find this project useful, please consider:

⭐ Starring the repositories
🔄 Sharing with your network
🐛 Reporting issues
💡 Suggesting features
🤝 Contributing code

📬 Get in Touch

Have questions or suggestions? Feel free to:

Open an issue
Create a pull request
Find me on Github
Follow me here on DEV

Let's make video downloading better, together! 🚀

opensource #typescript #nodejs #webdev

DEV Community: WaseemAnjum