A small but honest collection — projects we've designed, built, and continue to support. Different stacks, different industries, all self-hosted on infrastructure we own.
A WooCommerce-powered storefront for a London-based small business offering handcrafted spiritual and wellness products. We built and maintain the platform end-to-end — custom booking flow, payments, and ongoing support.
A client-facing migration portal for tracking visa applications, uploading sensitive documents securely, and viewing step-by-step progress. Built as a high-fidelity demonstration using Next.js 15 and Payload 3.
A professional Modbus TCP client/server for industrial environments. Multi-device connections, real-time trending with CSV/PNG export, a visual script editor, and per-row data view configuration. Open source, used by engineers worldwide.
A modeling portfolio site — gallery, shoots, events, blog, booking, and consolidated voting links, all editable through a built-in admin panel. Designed around her Beauty With A Purpose brand: warm, sincere, purpose-led.
A full-stack photography studio site for editorial, portrait, and brand work — Cape Town & worldwide. AVIF/WebP delivery up to 3840px, automatic EXIF extraction, PIN-gated client galleries with favourite/pick workflow, a before/after retouching slider, and a print store with a 1.72 m silhouette scale preview. Film-grain and golden-flare ambient layer keep the whole site on-brand.
An immersive landing page for a family-run interactive murder mystery night — ticketing, character reveals, venue details, and RSVP all on a fast, no-framework static site. Designed to feel like a theatrical invitation rather than a utility page.
A technical business site for a family-run HVAC and refrigeration company in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga. Built around a live aircon sizing calculator that uses the SA-standard 600 BTU/m² base with adjustments for ceiling height, sun, insulation, occupants and appliances — then projects monthly running cost against current Eskom and City of Mbombela electricity tariffs. A monthly cron hashes the source tariff pages and pings Gotify when they change, so rates are never silently stale.
A by-appointment booking + look-book site for a single-stylist home studio in Narangba, QLD. Custom multi-step booking flow with availability-aware calendar (react-day-picker), service-specific time slots, WhatsApp deep-link confirmations, and a per-photo view-count analytics dashboard so the owner can see which styles get the most attention. Payload CMS lets the stylist edit services, FAQs, care-guide articles, gallery photos, and weekly schedule without touching code. Includes a brand-aware ambient layer (warm satin shimmer particles) that respects prefers-reduced-motion.
A chambers-classic professional site for an advocate at the Johannesburg Bar. Restrained typography (Cormorant serif + system sans), dark-navy + bronze palette, and a content-in-code architecture so the site can be maintained without a CMS for a single-counsel use case. Includes structured Schema.org Attorney metadata, grouped practice-area taxonomy across 20 areas, and an instructing-attorney briefing checklist. No bookings, no analytics dashboards — just a credible digital business card with proper SEO.
A boutique-newsroom personal blog for a former Vrede Nuus editor turned realtor — broadsheet masthead with editable Volume / issue counter, Afrikaans-source posts auto-translated to English via Gemini 2.5-flash, hero + gallery uploads with sharp resize + lightbox, contact-form inbox, and a built-in Kaartspel module: Canasta and Bismarck leaderboards across 7 sortable stats (W/L form badges, "min games" filter, score-sheet + group-photo upload per game). Editable in an admin shell with grouped sidebar (Inhoud / Kaartspel / Analytics / Globals / Hulp), site-wide page-view chart, and a Sandra-friendly Afrikaans walkthrough (/gids).
A premium realtor showcase for Berrie Bouwer (retired headmaster of Hoërskool Piet Retief, now selling property in George + the Tuinroete). Cormorant + paper-cream + olive-bronze typography in the Engel & Völkers / Pam Golding register. Listings with hero+gallery upload (sharp WebP), MapLibre + OpenFreeMap (no token, fully OSS) for a single-pin per listing and a full-fleet kaart, AF default with Gemini-powered AF→EN translate per field, ZAR↔USD currency toggle, WhatsApp deep-link CTAs with click analytics, sticky-mobile contact bar, demo-mode toggle for the portfolio walkthrough. Admin sidebar groups Inhoud / Analytics / Globals / Hulp. 8 curated demo listings (Fancourt, Wilderness, Sedgefield, Knysna Heads, Plett, Klein Karoo, George, Mossel Bay) seeded as `is_demo`, gated by a single setting flag.
A cross-platform structured-debate app — start a "squabble" on any topic, take a side, exchange timed turns, and earn voted-up points. Originally Firebase-backed; we ported the entire stack onto self-hosted PocketBase + Mailcow SMTP, ripped out the Google/Firebase debt, wired Sentry for runtime visibility, and shipped branded verify/reset flows. Same Flutter codebase deploys to web, Android, and iOS.
A community lost-pet map. Owners register their dog or cat once (photo, breed, microchip ID, distinctive markings); if they ever go missing, they mark them lost with a last-seen address that geocodes to a real point on a public MapLibre + OpenFreeMap dark-tile map. Anonymous spotters within range see the pet on the map without needing an account, tap the pin for the full /lost/[slug] listing, and submit a sighting in 20 seconds — the owner gets emailed instantly via Mailcow with the spotter's contact, photo and notes. Confirm-or-reject workflow on the owner side, mark-reunited closes the loop. PostgreSQL + PostGIS for real ST_DWithin geospatial queries — a deliberate deviation from the Client-Site-v1 SQLite default, documented in the Phase 1 spec. Phase 1 (public web + owner flows) is live; Phase 2 council admin, Phase 3 Android with NFC chip scanner, and Phase 4 print collateral (Apple Wallet pet pass + A4 lost-dog poster) are specced and in queue.
An evergreen booking + admin demo for a casual cafe — online table reservations with a magic-link customer self-service flow, a responsive owner admin (bookings calendar, walk-in shortcut, status workflow), menu + photo gallery, a MapLibre + OpenFreeMap embed, and Gotify push on every new booking. Built on the Client-Site-v1 cafe pattern, deployed with DEMO_MODE permanently on so anyone can click into /admin (any password) and exercise the back office without an account. SMTP via Mailcow → Resend with sender bookings@softwareforge.cc; native systemd service on a Debian LXC, source-on-Windows + build-on-CT deploy.
softwareForge is actively shipping. Want to see your project here? Get in touch.