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

Building an Open-Source CRM as a Solo Developer: Insights from Five Months of Development

Embarking on the journey to create an open-source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system independently has been both challenging and rewarding. Over five months, I developed a functional minimum viable product (MVP), leveraging modern PHP tools and best practices. Here are some key lessons learned along the way.

What Worked Well

Exceptional Tools Accelerated Development

One of the standout tools I utilized was Filament, a powerful admin panel package. Its capabilities significantly shortened development time—what might have taken weeks was achievable in mere days. It truly streamlined the process of building admin interfaces.

Simplifying with Laravel and Livewire

Choosing Laravel combined with Livewire proved extremely effective for solo development. This stack eliminated the need to juggle separate API and frontend layers, allowing me to focus solely on core functionality within a cohesive environment.

Enjoyable Modern PHP Experience

Adopting modern PHP practices—using approximately 99.6% typed code supported by PHPStan at level 7—transformed the coding experience. Writing PHP became not only more reliable but also genuinely enjoyable, thanks to improved tooling and full type safety.

Challenges Encountered

Scaling Custom Fields

Initially, implementing custom fields seemed straightforward. However, performance issues emerged with more than 50 custom fields per record, causing page load times to jump from around 250 milliseconds to over two seconds. This was mitigated by optimizing eager loading strategies and implementing caching mechanisms.

Target Audience Focus

Designing for a broad audience is tempting, but it often results in feature bloat and complexity. Narrowing the focus to small teams allowed for more targeted solutions and a cleaner, more maintainable codebase.

Open Source Requires Dedication

Maintaining an open-source project is a significant commitment. Contributing code is just the beginning; ongoing maintenance, documentation, and community engagement demand consistent effort and time.

Effective Technical Decisions

Adhering to Laravel Conventions: Sticking to familiar conventions made development smoother and code more maintainable, even if it felt less glamorous.
Early Integration of PHPStan: Incorporating static analysis from day one uncovered numerous bugs early, saving time in later debugging.
Leveraging Filament Over Building From Scratch: Using existing admin panel solutions saved development hours and provided a polished, reliable interface.

Reflection

Completing an MVP in five months is both a rapid and measured timeline. It