Subreddit marketing guide

r/sideproject: rules, promo tolerance & best time to post

open to promo (9/10) · tone: Enthusiastic, practical, and supportive—people share work-in-progress projects and genuinely ask for feedback without pretense.

Can you promote in r/sideproject?

Relatively open: clearly-disclosed, genuinely useful product mentions are usually tolerated here — read the rules and stay helpful-first anyway.

r/sideproject is a deeply pro-maker, feedback-focused community that celebrates shipping over perfection. Members openly share unpolished work, personal motivations, and lessons learned; the culture vigorously rejects low-effort AI clones but rewards projects solving real problems with personality and humility. Self-promotion is the entire point—authenticity and generosity with feedback are the currencies that earn trust.

• DO share what you actually built and why it matters to you
• DO ask for honest feedback or specific critique
• DO explain the problem you solved, not just the tech stack
• DO highlight if it's free, open-source, or low-cost
• DO show personality and struggles (e.g., 'I spent 6 months building...')
• DON'T post vague 'would you use this?' without a working demo or link
• DON'T lead with monetization or sales metrics
• DON'T post another AI wrapper without genuine differentiation
• DON'T ask for help/hiring without showing your own work first
• DON'T spam the same project multiple times

New to this? Read how to promote without getting banned and the Reddit self-promotion rules before you post here.

Best time to post in r/sideproject

Based on when this community's recent top & hot posts were created: 09:00–13:00 UTC · weekdays do best. Re-compute it live →

What this community complains about

Recurring pain points in recent threads — each one is a conversation your product might belong in:

• Imposter syndrome / building in silence
• Finding first users
• AI saturation—fatigue with low-effort AI wrappers
• Deciding who the actual user is
• Getting honest feedback early

How locals talk

builtside projectopen sourcefeedback wantedlaunchedshippedmakerbootstrappedfree/no adsself-hostable

Using a community's own vocabulary is the difference between reading as a member and reading as a marketer.

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