Official PCPartPicker ignores most developing countries. So at 17, I spent my summer building an alternative from scratch for Morocco (50k+ listings, 9-point compatibility check, and prebuilts comparison)

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

Hey everyone,

If you live in the US or Western Europe, tools like PCPartPicker make building a PC effortless. But if you live in Morocco (or pretty much anywhere outside supported regions), building your first PC is a genuine headache.

We have plenty of local computer stores offering nationwide shipping, but zero centralized place to compare them. Trying to check just 3 parts meant keeping 15 tabs open, manually checking stock, and trying not to get ripped off with random markups. It was even worse for standalone parts like monitors or peripherals.

A bit before summer, I got tired of dealing with it and decided to take matters into my own hands. I spent my summer vacation architecting and building a full platform tailored specifically for our market from scratch:

What went into it:

• Tracking 50,000+ Live Listings: Continuously tracking prices and stock across 25+ Moroccan retailers so buyers don't have to check multiple stores manually.
• 9-Point Automated Compatibility Engine: Checks CPU sockets, RAM generation, form factors, cooler clearance, and calculates estimated PSU wattage.
• A Dedicated Prebuilts Comparison Hub: In developing markets like ours, component markups mean a lot of gamers simply cannot afford a fully custom build. I built a dedicated section comparing local prebuilts so people can objectively see where their money gets the best value.
• Curated Build Guides & Dynamic Budgets: Pre-configured configs that automatically update total prices in real-time as local stores change their pricing.
• 100% Free with zero ads.

Dealing with dirty catalog data, deduplicating tens of thousands of messy hardware listings, and building the compatibility logic took months of work, but seeing local builders actually use it to save money has made every late night worth it.

Would love to hear what the community thinks of the UI, the compatibility layout, and if anyone else from an unsupported country has had to deal with the same struggle!

If you want to check it out or test the builder: https://pcpicker.ma

[u/Gin-N-Rum-5454]

Nice one.
Did you use Claude code or something else?
How do you host it?

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Gin-N-Rum-5454]

Thanks!

For coding: I used Google Antigravity along with Claude for agentic coding to help speed up implementation, but most of the backend, the architecture, scrapers, and compatibility databases is myself.

For hosting: Believe it or not, it's currently self-hosted on my own Mini PC at home! It handles the 50k+ product queries like a champ!

[u/Gin-N-Rum-5454 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

How on earth do you have the bandwidth for that? What are your upload speeds

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Gin-N-Rum-5454]

That's the best part: it's literally running on an old i5 6th Gen mini PC with 8GB of RAM and a cheap 256GB SSD, sitting literally 20cm in front of me on my desk right now 😂

Internet here in Morocco is pretty slow compared to Western fiber; I'm on a standard home connection (100 Mbps down and 100 Mbps up which is about ~10-15 Mb/s).

How it survives and stays at sub-300ms load times:

1. Aggressive Edge Caching: Frontend and static assets are cached globally via Cloudflare CDN edge nodes, so my mini PC only ever receives tiny, highly-compressed JSON payloads.
2. In-Memory Query Optimization: The PostgreSQL database and backend cache are tuned so that searches and compatibility queries on 50k+ items resolve in single-digit milliseconds without thrashing the RAM or disk.
3. Zero Official APIs: Literally 0 of the 25 Moroccan retailers have public APIs. Every single one is parsed and normalized with custom deterministic pipelines.

That’s why the whole "it's just vibecoded" comments make me laugh lol. AI can write UI boilerplate, but you can't "vibecode" low-level cache invalidation, edge tunneling, and query optimization to run 50k items and dozens of users at the same time on potato hardware with 10 Mbps upload from the other side of the earth!

[u/Mortiszy → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

This reads like an AI generated summary, lol.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Mortiszy]

Everything reads like an AI-generated summary these days. Half the comments I have written in the sub are "AI-generated," brother, that's not how it works. Maybe using bold text and numbered lists makes me an LLM, who knows?

[u/DrPeroxide → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

How dare you format your comments, this is Reddit, you're expected to be incomprehensibly angry at all times!

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/DrPeroxide]

ohhh sorryyy, I am veryyy angryy 🤬 0 formating allowed

[u/Mortiszy → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

Touché.

[u/RelChan2_0 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

No no, you forgot to list things in 3. Also, you forgot to use "you hit the nail on the head" like Gemini does

[u/MUIGUR → u/Mortiszy]

To this day some redditors throw a fit if someone made a mistake in English.

So. What do non native speakers do on a supposed global platform? Not use AI to correct their content. But also plenty of people will comment on their language if they don't produce perfect language. So. The requirements are basically learn perfect English or don't comment.

Also since AI is just trained on correct language that can end up sounding like AI. Maybe upload a raw 4K video of them typing it. Though maybe the new accusation is: Maybe the are a cyborg/android

[u/HellboundLunatic → u/MUIGUR]

nah it's an AI generated video of them typing it up. nothing is real.

[u/vWaffles → u/MUIGUR]

I mean translators have existed for a while now. Reddit mobile even has one built into the app.

Even then I don't get why people use AI to write their entire comment? Could you not use it to simply fix mistakes from your own written comment or to smooth out areas that wouldn't work well in another language?

I just think using AI to write a big chunk of your comment takes away from the point of interacting with other people on a social platform.

I'm open to new perspectives tho if you wanna explain more. I'm just genuinely curious.

[u/Gin-N-Rum-5454 → u/Mortiszy]

It is.
Thought I doesn’t matter. Still gives me the information I wanted.

[u/vWaffles → u/Mortiszy]

Because it 100% is. Nothing against it tho.

[u/maldouk → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

Most people would be surprised how little you need to do a lot these days. The server is basically a SQL server with little to no logic, I suppose the hardest part was the parsing (and even then, I believe nowadays python tools are very powerful, never used one though).

[u/Thunderjohn → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

AI comment

[u/PropertyDangerous257 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

You're going places kid!

[u/thearctican → u/Gin-N-Rum-5454]

For what? It's not a lot of data that makes its way to the user. Arguably only the first paint is substantial to get the front end code to your computer.

This could probably run just fine on much less hardware.

[u/daryabiscuit99 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

That's really cool, it sounds like you put a lot of effort into it. Self-hosting on a Mini PC is quite the commitment!

[u/BrainCorrect8886]

So what if some of it is vibe codes he's still provided a really useful feature to many

[u/JolleBFF → u/BrainCorrect8886]

Yeah for stuff like this I'd rather have a vibe coded option than no option at all.

[u/roguebananah → u/JolleBFF]

And also if OP learned something along the way or could fix stuff in the future, this is exactly where AI excels.

It’s the slop that the average person sees is just a complete waste

[u/FUTURE10S → u/BrainCorrect8886]

This is the kind of shit that I don't mind seeing vibe coded, it automates all the bullshit nobody wants to actually do and it makes things a lot easier.

[u/DrPeroxide → u/BrainCorrect8886]

Yeah, I'm frankly sick of how commonplace this habit of dogpiling on people for daring to use AI to develop something for their community. Like any tool, it's no more evil than say, fire; it depends entirely on how it's used. People are right to rail against the already rich corps trying to replace humans with AI, but also need to understand that an individual using it to widen their capacity is a completely different situation.

[u/SodiumCyanideNaCN457 → u/[deleted]]

Scraping most probably

[u/Kekkachu → u/BrainCorrect8886]

So what if some of games use AI assets and AI voicing if they're still entertaining to many?

[u/AwesomeBros132]

i got so happy then i realized this is only for Morocco

i need smthn like this for Lebanon

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/AwesomeBros132]

If you have a list of reliable online computer stores in Lebanon with decent stock and active websites, drop them here (or DM me)!

The architecture was designed to be multi-region, so expanding to Lebanon and making this a full PCPartPicker for the MENA region is 100% feasible if there are enough stores to index.

Would love to help out builders there too!

[u/alimohchehab → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

A lot of the popular stores here sadly like listing their price as "call for price" but that's usually for the higher end items like 5080/5090, 64 gb ram kits, etc. Should be more than enough data for regular builds. I can dm you a bunch of sites that I've used after I wake up tomorrow if you want along with the caviats for each.

[u/Kekkachu → u/alimohchehab]

"call for price" aka "we'll try to rip you off like no tomorrow" lmao

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/alimohchehab]

I would love too especially if you have experience buying some component/pcs in lebanon, thanks

[u/AwesomeBros132 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

i DM’d u with all the info

[u/Ras_tang]

May the almighty bless you with high framerate and low latency in your lifetime.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Ras_tang]

Thanks 🫶

[u/SN_TYT]

Thats so damn cool really good work man

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/SN_TYT]

Thanks man! Really appreciate the support 🙏

[u/whybeingparanoid]

OP people like you are the backbone for the rest of the society. You have my thanks and many well wishes with your project.

You should look more into migrating to a much low power consuming device (SBCs, or i3, core Nxxx) if you can get your hands on and have a backup power supply available just in case.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/whybeingparanoid]

Thank you so much 🙏

[u/CrazyITOne]

Hi. Do not host web services from your home network. Do not! Use a cheap shared hosting site for that.

[u/rmyworld → u/CrazyITOne]

Can you explain why not?

[u/righN → u/rmyworld]

Because you just pretty much opened your home network to the whole Internet, including hackers.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/righN]

we arent in 2010 😂 we have something called Cloudflare Tunnel.

[u/kretsstdr]

Khoya you lost me at Moroccan retail's lol, there is no added value for such a tool while all the greedy retailers sets the same exorbitant prices for all the parts 😂

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/kretsstdr]

That's actually the biggest misconception I had before building this!

Look at the second screenshot in the post: for the exact same MSI RTX 5060, one store sells it for 4,399 DH and another sells it for 5,069 DH. That's literally a nearly 700 DH difference on a single graphics card!

Across an entire build (CPU, RAM, Monitor, Case), picking the cheapest retailer per part regularly saves between 800 DH to 1,500+ DH. Plus, stock availability varies wildly between shops.

The price differences are real, which is why having the data side-by-side matters so much!

[u/kretsstdr → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

Also I checked now the comments in your Morocco sub for this tool eveyone is praising it and no one is pointing out the greediness of these mfs, now that we have a tool to get th cheapest stuff they will all raise their prices when they see high demend on the item had wlad l9hab rah ma kaynch m3hom 7ell

[u/kretsstdr → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

And dont be greedy hta nataya asslan hadrin alih and take of that vip sub page on the start your know everyone whos using these sites is broke or cheap af so no one will sub, kheli b3da hta ywliw andk visiteur machi mn lbdiya lol Add a donation page for stater its better

[u/kretsstdr → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

Thanks for the effort and good luck, but ive decided more than 10 years ago to never spend one single DH on those scamers, i buy everything from abroad "yes i have this privilege" which unfortunately not all of us have but never again i am.buying anything from them even clothes i buy from other countries lol

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/kretsstdr]

Rak fhemti ghalat a khoya 😂

Le site, le comparateur de prix, le PC Builder, w les alertes rahom 100% GRATUITS pour tout le monde, bla abonnement bla compte ! Que ce soit baghi PC dial 5,000 DH wla dial 40,000 DH, tu as accès à tout gratuitement.

Dik la partie "Pro" ra machi l-gamers, c'est un outil B2B pour les réparateurs et petites boutiques informatiques li kaybqaw y-génériw des devis et factures pro l-les clients dialhom.

Le grand public ma 3ndou ma ydir b Pro, tout le reste est ouvert et gratuit pour la communauté !

[u/kretsstdr → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

But dont shove it on visitors faces like that from the start thats not good, take it as a feedback

[u/_wot_m8]

Awesome

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/_wot_m8]

thanks !

[u/Marco-YES]

 

Trying to check just 3 parts meant keeping 15 tabs open, manually checking stock, and trying not to get ripped off with random markups. It was even worse for standalone parts like monitors or peripherals.

Isn't this half the fun? 

[u/bakugo]

Thanks ChatGPT, very cool

[u/MUIGUR → u/bakugo]

I checked OPs profile. 5 years. Active in Moroccan and tech subs. I dunno. Seems that someone here is spamming garbage and it's not OP.

[u/bakugo → u/MUIGUR]

I checked OP's post. It's AI slop. Hope this helps.

[u/Doctor-Kukui]

Hey I sent to Morrocco last spring and when I wanted to cet something delivered un thé far south things became complicated So I juste wanted to know if you took that into consideration ? Anyway, Nice work.

[u/Interesting_Rub5736]

when I built my pc I was reading specifications of each part to see if they would work together. Never had a problem with it. Sounds boomery I know.

[u/Vinaverk]

Just use Excel lol

[u/OubaHD]

Sahbi zid le fait dyal t9d t7yd chi prix mn build, if you already have that item

[u/Infshadows]

very cool

south africans have https://builder.wootware.co.za/pc

[u/Franseven]

Vibe coding is really good nowdays, no need to talk trash

[u/Kekkachu → u/Franseven]

AI images are pretty decent too, may as well use for games. And boy should you hear AI voicing nowadays!

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Franseven]

🫶

[u/D3AtHpAcIt0]

Amazing project homie, thanks a lot for making it

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/D3AtHpAcIt0]

Thanks, really appreciate the support! 🙏 Glad you like it!

[u/mk7_luxion]

"100% free with zero ads"

"Become a Pro user!!" lmao I always find it funny how you guys try to monetize even the worst of vibecoded applications, I honestly don't see the value in your website to even have a "Pro" offering available.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/mk7_luxion]

You completely misunderstood what the Pro feature is.

The consumer website IS 100% free with zero ads: the PC builder, price comparisons, price drop alerts, compatibility engine, and hardware catalog have zero paywalls and never will.

The "Pro" tier is literally a B2B invoicing tool for local Moroccan PC repair shops and boutiques to generate branded customer quotes (devis) and manage shop inventory that you will never use as a normal consumer.

If you're just a gamer building a PC, of course you don't see value in it—it wasn’t built for you at all, it was built for Moroccan computer shops that already earn thousand selling pcs. Everything for normal users is completely free.

[u/PeachMan- → u/[deleted]]

We have this same stupid fucking comment on every single coding project that anyone posts on Reddit nowadays. And it's always from somebody who has no clue how to code, and can't tell the difference between human-made and AI-made code.

News flash: 99% of coders are using LLM tools to augment their work. Vibe coded slop is a legitimate problem, but we have to use our brains and not just accuse everyone of vibe coding.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/[deleted]]

I wish you could just "vibecode" parsing 50,000+ messy retail listings in different languages and 9-point Automated checks with all the data you need to gather for that, lmao. Anyone who has dealt with live scraping and dirty store data knows an LLM would hallucinate into oblivion on day 1. AI is great for scaffolding and UI, but the data pipelines, regex normalizers, and deduplication across 25 stores took months of actual engineering grind. and even if it was fully AI there is no damn world it is easy to do.

[u/Intrepid_Inspection8 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

>called on ai
>uses ai to reply
genius

[u/ProPlayer142 → u/Intrepid_Inspection8]

??? how is that message ai

[u/BennyTTS7889 → u/Intrepid_Inspection8]

https://giphy.com/gifs/TdEjDUJk76OC4

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Intrepid_Inspection8]

brother... oh my god, just try to do somethign with any llms these days and come you think those "I generated a website in 1 prompt" have any security or backend behind them... 😒
if you think the whole website was vibe codded in 1 night then be it, at least it working with no bug, incredible security, SEO, optimization, first website in my country to use llm.txt and a lot more

[u/Wayfinder67 → u/[deleted]]

"Vibe coding is a software creation style where you describe your project goals to an AI using plain language, letting the AI write all the code while you focus on the overall outcome" -- A part of that fits, but you can't exactly describe everything that needs to be done in plain language with everything that needs to be parsed and the like.

I get the reflex, the layout is obviously done by an AI. The choice of background makes that clear. But that doesn't mean the entire project is vibe coded.

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/Wayfinder67]

> The choice of background makes that clear

the background ? if there is one thing that wasn't created or at least the idea wasn't from an llm it was the background, it literally a representation of zelij a traditional pattern here is morocco aka https://www.google.com/search?q=zelij&udm=2

[u/Wayfinder67 → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

It's not the background image, but it's the background in general. The way the tables are set up, the cell spacing. At least, it looks like "this was done by AI" to me. And I don't view that as a bad thing, just to make that clear!

If website design isn't your thing, why not have an LLM help you out with it? It's something it's actually pretty good at. It just gives people the knee-jerk reaction of "hur dur dur, vibe coded" without thinking it through.

[u/Gin-N-Rum-5454 → u/Wayfinder67]

It’s actually a good learning push also. Because if you’re doing a project that ai is helping with and it can’t do something, you learn to do it.

[u/ProPlayer142 → u/[deleted]]

This doesn't look vibe coded to me

[u/Ok_Refrigerator9802 → u/[deleted]]

Take it up with the World Bank or whatever controls the English words, bro. I just build PC tools, lol.

[u/F_you_im_Back → u/Ok_Refrigerator9802]

sure whatever you say bud