I built my own forum using PHP- it came out great

#showdev #php #opensource #webdev

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on something I'm really
proud of — my own forum, built entirely from scratch with a $0 budget.

The Story

I'm a hobbyist developer who tinkers with HTML, CSS, and Python in
my spare time. One day I had a random idea — what if I built my own
forum? Three days later, Pixel's Forum was born.

It's been running for over a month now, and I've been continuously
improving it ever since. This week I wiped all the test posts and
threads to start fresh with real users.

Tech Stack

Frontend: PHP + HTML + CSS (vanilla, no frameworks)
Backend: MySQL via InfinityFree (free hosting)
Image CDN: ImgBB API
Auth: bcrypt passwords, session management, email password reset

Features

💬 Open discussions — tech, gaming, cars, casual chat
🖼️ Image uploads — show off your setups and artwork
🔒 Secure accounts with password reset via email
🌙 Dark mode
📱 Android app (WebView)
🖥️ Windows desktop app (Electron)
🔗 Short share links via pxl.gt.tc

The Apps

I also built companion apps for Android and Windows. They're WebView
and Electron based — not the most sophisticated approach, but it
works well and taught me a lot about app development. Both are fully
open source on GitHub.

What I Learned

Building this taught me more than any tutorial ever could:

PHP session management and security (bcrypt, prepared statements)
MySQL database design and foreign keys
Android development with Java
Electron.js desktop apps
Free hosting limitations and workarounds

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