17 subscriptions to replace
Build your own personal apps
Build tools for your own links, reading, images, and everyday routines. Compare 17 alternatives with build prompts and realistic estimates.
Build your own Linktree
A page of links. That is the whole app.
From 30 min · $9–$24/mo
Build your own Readwise Reader
Save links now. Actually read them eventually.
From 2 days · $10–$12.99/mo
Build your own TinyPNG Pro
Drop image. Make image smaller. Fin.
From 60 min · $25–$39/mo
Build your own CleanMyMac
Find the space hogs. Delete only what can safely grow back.
From 8 hours · $3.33–$9.95/mo per person
Build your own YNAB
Give every dollar a job without giving a company your bank history.
From 12 hours · $9.08–$14.99/mo
Build your own Carrd
It’s one page. You can build one page.
From 2 hours · $2–$4/mo
Build your own Raindrop.io
Every link you swore you’d revisit, findable this time.
From 3 hours · $2.33–$3/mo
Build your own Feedly
The blogs you love, fetched into a bowl you own.
From 8 hours · $7–$12/mo
Build your own Obsidian Sync
Your vault, your server, your problem now.
From 2 days · $5–$10/mo
Build your own IFTTT
If this happens, then do that. For your life, not your company.
From 8 hours · $2.99–$14.99/mo
Build your own Splitwise
Who owes whom, minus the group-chat forensics.
From 8 hours · $3.33–$4.99/mo
Build your own Paprika Recipe Manager
Recipes without the life story, groceries without the chaos.
From 6 hours · $2.5–$5/mo
Build your own Wanderlog
The trip, planned by you instead of forty open tabs.
From 8 hours · $5.99–$9.99/mo
Build your own CleanShot X
Screenshot, annotate, drag it where it needs to go.
From 10 hours · $8–$10/mo
Build your own Day One
A private journal you can take with you.
From 12 hours · $4.17–$6.25/mo
Build your own mymind
Save the image. Find it by the words inside it.
From 12 hours · $4.99–$12.99/mo
Build your own Habitify
Track the habit without turning it into homework.
From 4 hours · $2.49–$2.49/mo
Personal tutorials
- How to build a Carrd alternative
How to build a Carrd alternative with stacked sections, a contact form, and a publish button. Follow the prompts, check each step, then skip the builder.
- How to build a TinyPNG alternative
How to build a TinyPNG alternative with a drop zone, local compression, and a bytes-saved number. Follow the prompts, check each step, and skip the CDN.
- How to build a Linktree alternative
How to build a Linktree alternative with a profile, five links, and one theme. Follow the prompts, check each step, and skip the theme marketplace.
Read about building personal apps
- Build a Carrd alternative
Build a Carrd alternative as stacked sections, a contact form, and a publish button. $2–$4 a month is still rent if you already write HTML yourself.
- Build a TinyPNG alternative
Build a TinyPNG alternative in the browser. Drop images, compress them, download them. No accounts, no CDN. Originals never leave the device.
- Build a Linktree alternative
Build a Linktree alternative as a links list, an avatar, and one theme. Put a URL you own on the internet and cancel the $9–$24 a month bio page.
- What to vibe code first
What to vibe code first is a tonight project, not Notion. Start with a link page, a compressor, or a shortener you can finish, then cancel it.