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Lana
Lana

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I Built 35+ Free Browser Tools as a Solo Dev - Here's How

#webdev #buildinpublic #javascript #nextjs 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I Built 35+ Free Browser Tools as a Solo Dev
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I've been building ToolsOnFire - a collection of 35+ free online tools. Video converters, AI voice separation, a sticker creator, markdown converter, and more.

I'm a solo developer from the UK based in Norway. No team, no funding. Just a frustration with paying subscriptions for simple tasks, so I built free alternatives.

*The Stack *

  • Next.js 14 (App Router) with TypeScript - Firebase for auth and database
  • Stripe for premium tiers
  • Vercel for hosting The Key Decision: Process in the Browser Most of my tools process files entirely in the user's browser rather than on a server.

My Video to Gif Converter and Video to audio converter use FFmpeg.wasm - a WebAssembly port of FFmpeg.
This means files never leave the user's device. No uploads, no privacy concerns, and I don't pay for server compute.

The trade-off is browser memory limits. I had to add device detection to cap file sizes on mobile and optimise how large files are handled.

*AI-Powered Tools *

Some tools need real AI models:

  • Voice Separator and background music extractor - Splits recordings by speaker using Deepgram and Replicate. Useful for podcasts, interviews, and meetings.

  • Sticker Creator - Generates custom stickers with DALL-E 3, or removes backgrounds from photos client-side using an ONNX model.
    *What I've Learned *
    You have to try things to see if they work. My top 5 tools drive 90% of traffic, but I wouldn't have known which 5 without building all of them. Some tools I expected to be popular get no visits. Others I built on a whim end up surprising me.
    SEO is the real challenge. Building the tools was the easy part. Organic traffic growth is still slow. If I could go back, I'd start writing content and building backlinks from day one.
    *My Other Projects *

  • Meeting Transcriber - Records and transcribes meetings with automatic speaker identification - Speech Assistant Tool - AI speech coaching with real-time feedback
    I'm always building and experimenting with new tools. If something works, I double down. If it doesn't, I move on.

Would love to hear from anyone who's grown a tools site from zero - what worked for you?

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