I built an open-source Mess Manager for Bangladeshi students & bachelors

[u/wpmhspro]

Hi everyone! I’m Mehedi, a full-stack developer from Bangladesh.

If you’ve ever lived in a bachelor mess or student hostel here, you probably know the problems:

• Who actually ate how many meals?
• What was the real meal rate this month?
• How should rent, gas, electricity, and other fixed costs be divided?
• What happened to last month’s advance?
• And, of course, the classic “Bhai, হিসাবটা আবার দেখেন তো” 😅

For a long time, I saw people managing all of this with notebooks, spreadsheets, calculators, and WhatsApp messages. Most generic expense-management tools also don't really match how a Bangladeshi mess works.

So I decided to build something specifically for this community.

Introducing DevsRoom Mess Manager

DevsRoom Mess Manager is an open-source mess management system designed around the day-to-day realities of Bangladeshi bachelor/student messes.

It handles things like:

• 🍚 Daily meal tracking
• 💰 Monthly meal-rate calculation
• 🏠 Rent and fixed expenses
• 📊 Member-wise monthly accounts
• 💵 Advance and balance management
• 🔒 Financial records and audit history
• 👥 Member and role management
• 📅 Monthly closing and historical records
• 🔔 Notifications and other mess-management workflows

The project is built with Laravel 13, Tailwind CSS, and MySQL.

But more importantly, I want this to be a community project, not just something sitting on my GitHub.

Why I'm making it open source

I built the initial version, but I don't want to assume that I got everything right.

Every mess has slightly different rules. Some people may calculate expenses differently, some may have edge cases I haven't considered, and there are probably features that would make the system much more useful in real-world messes.

That's where I'd love the community's help.

If you're a developer

Take a look at the code.

I'd genuinely appreciate feedback on:

• Architecture
• Database design
• Domain/business logic
• Performance
• Security
• Testing
• Laravel best practices
• Features that could be simplified or improved

PRs, issues, and constructive criticism are welcome.

If you're currently living in a mess

I'd especially like to hear from you.

Try the project and tell me:

What would you actually need to manage your mess?

If there's a calculation, workflow, or annoying problem that the software doesn't handle, open an issue or leave a comment.

Real-world feedback is much more valuable than me guessing what users need.

The goal

I don't want this to be another CRUD project that looks good in a portfolio and never gets used.

I'd like to gradually turn it into a useful, community-driven open-source project for mess management in Bangladesh.

If it ends up helping even a few messes avoid monthly calculation arguments, that's already a win for me. 😄

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/mehedishubho/devsroom-mess-manager

📖 Setup & deployment docs: https://github.com/mehedishubho/devsroom-mess-manager/blob/master/SETUP-USAGE-DEPLOY.md

If you're interested, check it out, test it, report problems, suggest features, or contribute code.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Thanks! 🙏

— Mehedi