I'm a photographer, so I built my own gear inventory app (with help from Cursor)

I'm a photographer and a developer, and since 2025 I've been building GearDex (https://geardex.app) on my own. It's a camera gear inventory for photographers, videographers, and studios. It started as a web app. Now there are Mac and Windows apps too.

Update, October 2026: GearDex 4.0

I wrote this post in late September, back on version 3.5. A few weeks later the app looks pretty different, so here's what changed.

4.0 redraws the whole app. A rail on the left holds Gear, Business, Site, Production and Utilities, and pages open in a panel beside it. Gear, loans, maintenance and documents all share one sortable list, with the record's details next to it.

Lending is the big new workflow. Print a QR label, scan gear out and back in, send the borrower an agreement to sign, and see what's due this week.

GearDex also picked up the business side of photography. Every plan gets a photography website and client galleries. Pro adds a client CRM. Studio adds online booking, quotes, contracts, and invoices paid through your own Stripe, PayPal, or Venmo link. GearDex takes no cut.

Iris, the built-in assistant, got rebuilt. Tell it what you bought and it drafts the item, with mount and filter thread filled in. Nothing saves until you press Add.

The desktop apps caught up too: GearDex for Mac 1.3.0 (Apple Silicon and Intel) and a new Windows app, 1.2.0.

What it does

GearDex keeps your kit in one place. Every item gets serials, photos, purchase price, current value, condition, location, and its receipts. From there you can:

• Plan shoots with call sheets, weather, and sun times, then pack from the gear you own
• Lend gear by QR scan, with reminders and signed loan agreements
• See which records are missing a photo, serial, or receipt (Record Readiness, free)
• Run a photography site and client galleries, plus a CRM on Pro and booking and invoices on Studio

It's free up to 25 items. Pro is $4/mo or $39/yr, and Studio is $19/mo or $179/yr. There's no App Store or Play Store app, but the web app installs to your phone's home screen. You can use it in the browser or download the Mac and Windows apps at https://geardex.app/download.

The stack

It's built with Next.js, React, and TypeScript. I'm a solo maker in Irvine, CA, so I leaned hard on AI help, mostly Cursor, to move faster than I could alone.

What I learned

AI speeds up the building. The deciding is still on you. Cursor got me from idea to a working feature fast. It can't tell you which features photographers actually need, though. That part still came from being one.

Meet people where they already work. A web app was the right place to start. The Mac app came next because that's where a lot of photographers already edit, and the Windows app followed for everyone whose studio runs on a PC.

I'd love feedback

If you shoot, run a studio, or just have too many batteries in a drawer, I'd love to hear what you think. And if you've built something solo with AI help, what was your biggest lesson?

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This post was drafted with AI help.