12 side-project portfolio ideas for developers with too many projects

You have fourteen domains and one bio link. Here are twelve ways to make the pile look like a body of work.

The best portfolio for a developer with too many side projects is not one more project — it's a cheap, low-maintenance surface that lists what you've shipped, admits what's dead, and updates itself. Below are twelve ideas that do that, from a /projects grid you own to a $1 square per project on Square Town (square.pov.town), roughly in order of effort. Most take an afternoon. None need a redesign.

TL;DR — 1) /projects grid with favicons · 2) a graveyard page · 3) a changelog feed · 4) an OG-image collage · 5) a GitHub profile README table · 6) $1 per project on Square Town · 7) one shared status page · 8) one newsletter for everything · 9) a Now page · 10) all domains → one landing · 11) your own favicon wall · 12) llms.txt per project. Pick three.

1. A /projects grid built from favicons#

A single page on your main domain, one card per project, favicon as the image. You don't have screenshots for everything and you never will. You do have a favicon for anything with a domain, and Google's favicon service will hand it to you at https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=example.com&sz=64 with no work. Card = icon + name + one line + link + status. Sort by "last touched". Costs nothing, takes an hour, and the icons make it look designed. If your icons are ugly at 64 px, read favicon design tips first — it's the same fix in every list below.

2. A graveyard page for the dead ones#

/graveyard: every project you've killed, with dates and one sentence on why. Dead projects are half of most developers' output and the most honest signal of experience. A graveyard says: I ship, I measure, I stop. Keep the format identical to the projects grid (favicon, name, born–died, cause of death: "no users", "got bored", "Twitter API"). Bonus: it stops the dead ones from silently rotting on the live page, which is the dead-link problem in miniature.

3. One changelog feed across all projects#

A single RSS/Atom feed (and a page) that lists releases from every project. Pull from GitHub releases, or just write a Markdown file per entry with a project: field. The point is that "what have you been up to" has one URL. It also quietly proves the projects are alive, which is worth more than any "About" paragraph.

4. An OG-image collage as your social card#

Your main site's Open Graph image is a grid of your projects' favicons or OG images. Every time your homepage gets shared, the preview is the portfolio. Generate it with a small script (a canvas, a loop, save PNG) and re-run it when you ship something. Sixteen icons in a 4×4 looks like a studio; you are, technically, a studio.

5. A GitHub profile README table#

Your username/username README with a table: icon, project, one-liner, stars, status. GitHub is where other developers already look at you. Use the same favicon service URLs for the icon column so it's zero-maintenance, and put the live ones above the archived ones. Link back to your /projects and /graveyard — the profile README should be the summary, not the source.

6. A $1 square per project on Square Town#

One 1×1 square per domain on Square Town, adjacent, so they read as one neighbourhood. Square Town is a live favicon wall (how it works): paste a URL, it fetches the favicon, you click an empty cell to pick the spot, $1 via Stripe, one-time, no account. Ten projects = $10, and you can put them side by side so the block is recognisably you on a wall of strangers. Each square gets its own deed with clicks, views and kisses, and in 3D each favicon is a tower whose height is its click count — a small, public leaderboard of which of your projects people actually click. What it isn't: an SEO play. Clicks are a plain redirect; there's no link juice. What it is: a cheap showcase with a scoreboard, and a game (anyone can evict you for $2, and icons nobody kisses for 90 days go grey). Where to put them is in how to pick a good square; the persona page is Square Town for developers with many side projects.

7. One shared status page#

A single /status (or a status subdomain) with an uptime row per project. Free-tier uptime monitors will happily ping fifteen URLs. A status page turns "I have a lot of projects" into "I run a lot of services", and it catches the ones that died without telling you — before a visitor does. Link each row to the project and to its graveyard entry when it goes.

8. One newsletter for all of it#

Not one list per project. One list, monthly-ish, "what I shipped". Each project's footer says "get updates on this and my other projects". Cross-pollination is the whole value: the people who found you via the CLI tool are the ones who'll try the SaaS. Archive the issues on your site so the newsletter doubles as the changelog (idea 3).

9. A Now page#

/now: what you're working on this month, in three bullets, dated. The Now page format is old and works: it's the human-readable current state of the pile. Say which project has your attention, which is on ice, and what you're not doing. Update it when it stops being true. It pairs with the graveyard — the Now page is the front of the queue, the graveyard is the back.

10. Every project's domain points somewhere useful#

Every domain you own either serves a project or 302s to your /projects page. Parked domains are the worst portfolio: they say you buy names and don't finish. A one-line redirect rule turns each stray domain into a door back to the collection. While you're there, make sure each live domain has a working favicon (how to add one); a domain that shows a blank icon in a tab bar (or a 🤡 on Square Town) undoes the rest of this list.

11. A favicon wall of your own#

A page that renders every domain you own as a tight grid of favicons, nothing else. No text, no cards, no descriptions — just the icons, linking out, maybe with a hover tooltip. It's a mood board of your work and it takes 30 lines of HTML. If you want it to be a shared wall with strangers, live updates and a Throne, that's what square.pov.town is; if you want it private and yours, build the little one. Both use the same trick: a favicon is the one image every project already has, drawn to work at 16 px. Read why favicons beat pixels for why that trick holds up.

12. An llms.txt for each project#

A plain-text /llms.txt on every project explaining what it is, who it's for and where the docs are. AI assistants increasingly answer "what does X do" by reading the site; a short, honest text file makes that answer accurate. It's also the fastest README you'll ever write. Put a link to your /projects page in every one so an assistant that finds one project can find the rest.

How to pick three#

You don't need all twelve. A sensible minimum:

Whatever you pick, use the same icon everywhere. The favicon is the thread that ties a /projects grid, a GitHub table, an OG collage and a $1 square into one body of work — which is why fixing your favicons is step zero. See how to showcase all your projects with favicons for the version of this list that's only about that.

FAQ#

What's the cheapest way to showcase many side projects?#

A /projects page on a domain you already own, using Google's favicon service for images, costs nothing. If you want them somewhere public with strangers, Square Town charges $1 per project, one-time.

Should dead side projects be in a portfolio?#

Yes, on a separate graveyard page with dates and a one-line cause of death. It's honest, it shows judgement, and it stops dead links from rotting your live projects list.

How much does it cost to put ten projects on Square Town?#

$10 — every square is 1×1 and $1, one-time, via Stripe. Optional: $5 per square unlocks per-day view and click analytics on that square's deed. Squares can be evicted by anyone paying double, and icons unkissed for 90 days fade to grayscale (still owned).

Does a square on Square Town help SEO?#

No. Clicks go through a plain redirect and the wall is a WebGL canvas. Its value is visibility to a niche audience, the showcase, and per-square click/view analytics — not links.

What should go in a Now page?#

Three to five dated bullets: what has your attention this month, what's paused, what you've decided not to do. Update it when it stops being true.

Why favicons instead of screenshots?#

Every project with a domain already has one, it's drawn to be legible at 16 px, and it's the same image in tab bars, GitHub tables and favicon walls — so the portfolio is consistent with zero design work.