5 months, one developer, one CRM – what I learned building with Laravel + Livewire

Building an Open-Source CRM in Five Months: Lessons Learned as a Solo Developer

Embarking on a solo journey to develop a comprehensive CRM from scratch was both challenging and rewarding. Over the course of five months, I engineered an open-source customer relationship management system using Laravel and Livewire, gaining invaluable insights along the way. Here’s a reflection on the experience, highlighting what worked, what didn’t, and key tech decisions that made the process smoother.

Highlights of the Development Journey

The Bright Spots

Filament Admin Panel: Implementing Filament dramatically accelerated development. Tasks that would typically take weeks were completed within days, thanks to its robust and user-friendly interface. It truly transformed what’s possible for a solo developer.
Laravel & Livewire: This combination proved to be ideal for solo development. It eliminated the need for separate API and frontend layers, streamlining the workflow and reducing complexity.
Modern PHP Practices: Writing PHP with modern standards (around 99.6% typed code, utilizing PHPStan at level 7) made the development process more enjoyable and less error-prone. PHP 8’s features provided a fresh, productive experience.

Challenges Encountered

Handling Custom Fields: Implementing custom fields initially seemed straightforward, but performance issues arose when records contained more than 50 fields. Page load times increased from 250ms to 2 seconds. Addressing this required optimized eager loading strategies and effective caching mechanisms.
Scope & Audience: Striving to build a tool for “everyone” often dilutes focus. I learned the importance of narrowing the target audience, choosing to tailor the CRM for small teams rather than a general-market approach.
Maintenance Burden: Open-source projects require ongoing commitment. Supporting users, fixing bugs, and integrating new features demand consistent effort — it’s far from “free time.”

Strategies and Tech Choices That Paid Off

Adhering to Laravel Conventions: Following established best practices kept the codebase maintainable and sped up development, even if it felt “boring” at times.
Early Integration of PHPStan: Incorporating static analysis from day one caught numerous issues early, saving debugging time later on.
Utilizing Filament: Instead of building admin interfaces from scratch, leveraging Filament saved substantial development hours and provided a polished, extensible admin panel.

The Reality Check

Completing a minimal viable product (MVP) in five months is