Building an Open-Source CRM Solo: Lessons from Five Months of Development with Laravel and Livewire
Over the past five months, I embarked on a journey to develop an open-source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application from scratch, working solo as the sole developer. This experience offered numerous insights into modern PHP development, tool selection, and project management. In this article, I’ll share the key lessons learned, the technical choices that paid off, and some reflections on the challenges faced along the way.
The Bright Spots: What Worked Well
1. Leveraging Filament for Rapid Development
One of the most impactful decisions was integrating Filament, an admin panel toolkit for Laravel. Its capabilities transformed what could have been weeks of UI development into a matter of days. Filament’s intuitive interface, extensive component library, and seamless Laravel integration enabled me to build robust Administration features efficiently.
2. Laravel and Livewire: The Perfect Pair for Solo Development
Choosing Laravel combined with Livewire proved to be a game-changer. This stack allows for building modern, reactive interfaces without the complexity of managing separate API and frontend layers. It streamlined my development process, reducing overhead and keeping everything within a cohesive PHP environment.
3. Modern PHP: Enjoyable and Productive
Modern PHP features, especially with heavy typing (approximately 99.6%) and PHPStan at level 7, significantly improved code quality and developer experience. Writing type-safe PHP turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable and contributed to more maintainable, bug-resistant code.
Confronting the Challenges
1. Scaling Custom Fields: Performance Pitfalls
Initially, I assumed adding custom fields per record would be straightforward. However, as the number approached 50+, page load times skyrocketed from roughly 250 milliseconds to over two seconds. The solution involved implementing smarter eager loading strategies and effective caching to optimize database queries and data retrieval.
2. Narrowing the Focus: Building for Niche Teams
Designing a CRM for “everyone” quickly revealed the pitfalls of overly broad scope. It became evident that trying to cater to all use cases led to bloated features and diluted usability. Instead, I concentrated on small teams with specific needs, resulting in a more focused and valuable product.
3. Open Source Requires Sustained Commitment
Maintaining an open-source project is often underestimated. It’s not just about initial development but ongoing updates, bug fixes, and community engagement. This continuous effort demands discipline and
