Fed up comparing flights by hand, one developer built a real total-cost comparison tool
A developer got tired of manually checking flights from multiple airports, so they built a tool that adds up the full travel cost — ticket price plus transportation to each airport. It shows which airport is actually cheapest, not just which fare looks lowest. It's a textbook example of turning a personal frustration into a product.
Choosing the cheapest flight isn't as simple as picking the lowest ticket price. A nearby airport might have a pricier fare, but a farther one adds taxi or train costs that wipe out any savings. This developer built a tool that pulls flight prices from several nearby airports and adds estimated ground transportation costs to show a true total cost side by side.
The project follows the classic solo-builder playbook: find one specific problem you personally face, then solve it as simply as possible. There's no complex feature set — just one clear answer to one clear question. It's a useful reminder that a small, focused tool solving a real pain point is often enough to build something people actually want to use.
Key points
- Searches flights from multiple nearby airports and adds ground transportation cost to show the real total price
- Classic 'scratch your own itch' approach — built to solve the creator's own frustration
- Deliberately narrow scope: one problem, one answer, nothing extra
- Posting to Reddit's SideProject community is a low-effort way to get early feedback on a new tool
Quick term guide
- ports
- Numbers that apps use so they can talk on the same computer without clashing.
- port
- A specific virtual door on your computer used by apps to send and receive information.
- Rice
- The hobby of visually customizing a computer desktop or operating system to make it look unique and personal.
- build
- A chosen set of in-game abilities or items a player equips for their character.
- Plex
- An app that streams your own video and music files to your devices.
- scratch your own itch
- A startup approach where you build a product to solve a problem you personally experience.
- scope
- The size, scale, and limits of a project or problem.
- feedback
- A response that tells a user what they did well or should fix.