Building FindPlugins.ai

Hey everyone! I wanted to share with you a little bit about a recent project of mine. I've been deep diving into the world of AI and discovered a gap I thought I could fill. So, I set out to create FindPlugins.ai, a product review website for plugins built for ChatGPT and other language models. This post is going to go into the libraries I used to put this together...

The core of the website is built with Next.js. I've always appreciated its hybrid static and server rendering capabilities, and it truly shines with this project. Coupled with MongoDB as the database, it's been a smooth ride from the start. This was my first time using their Atlas product as well as the Mongoose ODM. It was really easy to get started with.

MongoDB's Atlas was also really easy to setup, and before I knew it, I was reading and writing to the database a few minutes after installing the NPM package. Honestly, it was refreshing how straightforward it was compared to some tools I've wrestled with in the past. Mongoose, as an ODM, made structuring the data and creating complex queries much simpler.

For the UI, I used Chakra UI and TailwindCSS. These two combined gave me the flexibility and speed I needed to create a responsive, accessible, and stylish website. Chakra UI's component library is comprehensive, and TailwindCSS’s utility-first approach made it easy to customize each part of the website. Plus, hosting the website on Vercel was a breeze and offered great performance right out of the box.

My motivation behind creating this little app all started while I was researching potential plugins for ChatGPT. I quickly found the lack of search functionality quite challenging. I mean, how do you efficiently find the gems hidden in the ocean of plugins? Hence, the birth of FindPlugins.ai.

Going forward, I've got a few plans for the website. I'm going to implement user login capabilities using NextAuth. Then, I'm looking to add a feature for rating and reviewing plugins. This will enable users to sort plugins based on ratings, and the reviews will provide insights into the functionality of each plugin.

Who knows if OpenAI will eventually introduce a similar feature that puts this project out of business. But, I'm banking on the value of third-party ratings and reviews that users can trust due to my non-affiliation. Besides, this site could also serve as a launchpad for any ChatGPT plugin I build in the future.

Who knows, maybe I can eventually utilize it to promote my new AI-generated puzzle app, PuzzleGenerator.ai!

That's all I've got! A little 'behind-the-scenes' tour of building FindPlugins.ai. I hope this inspires you to create something of your own or at least give some of these technologies a shot!