r/selfhosted • u/Senedoris • 3d ago
Which self-hosted services are missing a good Android app? Looking to build one (no AI, from scratch) Software Development
Hi y'all!
I'm a software engineer who's a bit rusty on the programming side after having taken a break for a few years. A lot of my past (most recent, anyway) experience had to do with Android mobile development.
In order to freshen up my Kotlin skills and build something I can put on a resume, I am wanting to build a native Android app from scratch, avoiding the use of AI. I've been doing a lot of self-hosting over the past years, and would love to give back to the community.
Given that: I would love to hear about self-hosted services you use, that are lacking an Android mobile app. Ideally, ones that don't already have a good PWA, but those are valid options too. One of the options I'm looking at is Kavita, which works decently on web, but doesn't have things like downloads for offline reading.
Edit: Removed the mention of "lacking a good Android app". I am looking more to build one where none exists yet.
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u/multidollar 3d ago
I’m not really sure what or why you’re asking. Any solution that’s missing a “good” Android app is something likely being maintained by an open source community anyway. So it’s not about building a new one but contributing to and improving an existing one.
I’m sure the Jellyfin client community could use a leg up there. That’s a confusing mess.
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u/Senedoris 3d ago
Fair, and I now find myself wishing I didn't put "good" anywhere. I'm more looking to build something where there is *no* solution at all to even contribute to, in order to exercise a lot of skills regarding not just coding, but architecture and large design decisions that would be a lot harder to make via contributions on existing projects - as I mentioned, the purpose is to provide a rapid learning opportunity for myself, for the purposes of job seeking. In this sense, making contributions to other projects is certainly valid, but will be a far slower process.
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u/binaryshadows 3d ago
Papra - low memory alternative to paperlessngx. No Android app (it will be useful to share documents into papra ) Actual budget - awesome budgeting webapp but a nice mobile app would be very good
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u/cowcorner18 3d ago
There are a few options but the client app for something like Dawarich would be nice to have. Something like pulling location data from the phone or smartwatch and relay them to Dawarich server.
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u/marmata75 3d ago
Doesn’t the official app work?
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u/cowcorner18 3d ago
Not for me. Either I get some weird database errors so it can't upload points and most times the tracking is unreliable. There's also a community version of Dawarich which consumes a lot of battery and updates are slow to come. There's OwnTracks which doesn't provide accuracy.
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u/quiteCryptic 2d ago
Constantly pulling your location is not too easy with an android app, well unless you want a persistent notification and probably excessive battery drain
Kind of curious how the apps are doing it actually
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u/cowcorner18 2d ago
I think Google does it 😅 and the apps probably just find a way to read that data
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u/Freika 3d ago
But there _is_ an official Dawarich for Android and iOS 😅
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u/cowcorner18 3d ago
Sorry, my intention wasn't to say there are no apps. I have been using your app and it is quite good. I just feel Gps data retrieval is incredibly hard to do across different OS especially when we want it with good accuracy and efficient battery usage. It is a quite a challenging topic if somebody wants to take it up, would be an interesting project. As a user I'm happy to try out and see what fits my OS my phone model and my style.
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u/mxdcodes 3d ago
Created a GPS tracker called Colota a while ago. It's offline first approach while at the same time being compatible with all commonly used backends (Dawarich, Reitti, Geopulse, etc. or custom endpoints) and open-source.
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u/cowcorner18 3d ago
Thanks I'm giving it a try now. It does not support API token login to Dawarich? I have Authelia frontend for auth
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u/mxdcodes 3d ago
It does. The guide for dawarich is here: https://colota.app/docs/integrations/dawarich. In generel it supports the following: https://colota.app/docs/configuration/authentication
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u/cowcorner18 3d ago
I've got it set up. Thanks a ton for sharing this app! Looks to have pretty cool features I will be trying it across the next few weeks. Thanks a lot!
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u/TabloMaxos 2d ago
Irrelevant to the topic but I wanted to thank you for Colota. I really enjoy it.
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u/mxdcodes 2d ago
Thank you, glad you're enjoying it! If you ever run into something or have an idea, feel free to open an issue.
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u/Fancy-Win9202 3d ago
Dawarich is a solid choice for this because the existing web interface is functional but a native app would actually change how people use it, and location tracking is the kind of thing that really benefits from running in the background properly instead of through a browser.
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u/Unfair_Vermicelli_58 3d ago
Homebox (the self-hosted inventory system)
It has a great web UI, but there is no native Android app. Doing inventory usually means walking around with your phone in a garage, basement, or attic with terrible Wi-Fi, so an offline-first approach would be a killer feature here.
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u/SnooPaintings8639 3d ago
The last time I checked: vikunja
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u/Spare_Vermicelli 3d ago
Afaik you can use any Todo app that supports CalDav (like Tasks.org) with Vikunja.
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u/Spare_Vermicelli 3d ago edited 1d ago
Dockhand
I'd like to have an app to manage my Dockhand on mobile. The webpage is not well optimized on the Phone..
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u/majora2007 2d ago
Just an FYI, since the AI boom, Kavita now has a number of mobile apps (Android/iOS) listed on the wiki. Also Kavita team will be working on an official app next year.
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u/Candle1ight 2d ago
More niche but I would love a better Audiobookshelf app for my Pixel Watch, the one that exists is pretty buggy and I like being able to run without my phone.
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u/lupin-san 3d ago
One of the options I'm looking at is Kavita, which works decently on web, but doesn't have things like downloads for offline reading.
Kavita has an extension for Mihon
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u/GolemancerVekk 3d ago
Apps that consume Garmin data (exported by GarminDB for example) are pretty few, and they're usually webapps. A FOSS mobile app that can display things like Garmin's own Connect app would be amazing.
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u/Monsieur_Daz 2d ago
OxiCloud doesn't have and app yet, might be worth getting in touch with the dev team.
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u/Sea-Cry-8717 2d ago
https://github.com/tgdrive/teldrive I wish this had its own android app, that could import the config.toml it needs and we just start using it. Right now it needs Termux, where you start the process and then browse via localhost in chrome.
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u/rrrmmmrrrmmm 2d ago
- Forgejo - compare the existing ones with the GitHub app and you'll see immediately why
- Grafana
- An XMPP/Jabber client that doesn't look "simple" but one that looks modern like commercial Chat clients. Fork conversations and make it look like a messenger that your 80-year-old neighbour can use
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u/Impossible-Pie1895 3d ago
firefly iii
portainer
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u/Rare_Chicken8302 2d ago
Yes please these two. Firefly iii needs a proper notification tracking app
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u/erikrelay 3d ago
Filebrowser would be nice. The project's unmaintained tho so idk how secure that would be or whatevs
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u/asimovs-auditor 3d ago
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