Yummunity: A Social Network for Food Lovers

It's a social network for food lovers to share, discover cuisines, connect over food. I built this food platform as a side project from idea to launch

Imagine a social network committed just to food lovers. That's what I’m introducing you to: Yummunity. It's like a welcoming corner of the internet where you can find new recipes, share your food adventures, and connect with people who like cooking and eating as much as you.

In this In-depth article, I’ll give an overview of why and how it was made from scratch, explain my inspiration for these ideas, and, working as a side project, explore the features and tech stack behind Yummunity and show how it leverages modern web technologies. So let's get deep drive in.

Yummunity is a contemporary, community-driven online app designed to bring food enthusiasts together. Yummunity offers a vibrant platform for sharing, discovering, and engaging with food content, whether you're a home chef, a food blogger, or someone who loves trying new recipes.

The name "Yummunity" itself sounds like it's all about tasty food and bringing people together that’s here is the break down of it, the term "Yummunity" indicates that it focuses on both tasty meals ("Yum" or “Yummy”) and a strong sense of connection and togetherness ("Community") that means Yummy + Community = Yummunity.

My primary goal was to establish a welcoming online community where foodies could congregate and feel completely at home. I wanted to create something unique and specialised in a world full of generic platforms, where food serves as more than simply material but also as a topic of conversation, a memory, and a common interest. It's about more than simply sharing a recipe or meal; it's about making relationships, exchanging ideas, and experiencing the joy of cooking and eating together.

Yes, I know there are other platforms like Instagram, Thread, X, Facebook, and YouTube where people could share this cooking stuff. So is the difference in this? And what is the USP? So I got this in that why I design the yummunity as like other networking platforms Also, I got the design inspiration from Meta Thread and X(Twitter) itself, so I think there shouldn’t issue using it.

For any online platform centred around a specific interest to thrive, it must offer compelling features that cater to the needs and desires of its target audience. In the context of a food-focused community, this includes, but is not limited to:

Okay, here's how our tech stack powers those features:

User Authentication (basic auth or Google auth): Auth (Google OAuth and Basic Auth) provides secure methods to log in, whether through your Google account or a traditional email and password.

User onboarding process: well, after the successful signup, you will be redirected to the welcome page where you will have to provide other information such as display pictures, user tag, bio, favourite recipe, and the list goes on.

Posts & Blog Posts Sharing: The Home feed is all about the interface you use to create and view posts.

Like, Comment, Save, and Share functionality: You can interact with other community posts, you have the power to take the platform to the next level and set the trend however it reflected in these changes in real-time for you and other users.

User Account page: This is the actual profile page, which can be publicly viewed by any user and displays your personalised information and settings. You provide this data when you are onboarding, and then it is fetched from our Appwrite Database.

Responsive design: Yummunity is fully responsive. This means the layout automatically adjusts to fit different screen sizes (phones, tablets, computers) for a consistent experience.

Recipe finder through search: The Search page provides the search bar, and when you type in your query, it provides a variety of recipes that you can make.

Post notification implementation: If any user interacts with your post, such as liking, commenting and saving, then it will show up on the notification page.

Yummunity uses a modern, semi-full-stack setup for performance and scalability

Layer Technology Frontend Angular 18, TypeScript, Angular Material, HTML , CSS Backend Node js, Appwrite Storage Appwrite bucket Storage Auth Google oauth and Basic Auth Hosting Google Cloud Run & Vercel Others Angular CLI, RxJs, Ngx Markdown, TheMealDB, Pexel Photo API

Ever curious about what makes our platform tick? It's all about the right tools working together! Think of it like this:

Frontend: I’ve used Angular 18 as the main structure, making things interactive with TypeScript. Angular Material gives us ready-made design pieces, while HTML builds the basic pages, and CSS makes them look good. It's all about creating a smooth and visually appealing experience for you.

Backend: Behind the scenes, Node.js helps us run things efficiently, and Appwrite provides handy tools for managing data and users. This is where all the heavy lifting happens.

Keeping Data Safe (Storage): I’ve used Appwrite Bucket Storage to securely store all the necessary files and information. Think of it as our digital filing cabinet.

Security First (Auth): We use secure methods like Google OAuth and Basic Auth to make sure only you can access your account. It's like having a reliable lock on the door.

Getting to You (Hosting): Our platform lives on the internet thanks to Google Cloud Run and Vercel. They make sure everything is fast and accessible to everyone.

Helping Hands (Others): We also use tools like Angular CLI for development, RxJs for smoother interactions, Ngx Markdown for easy content, and likely TheMealDB for getting various recipes and Pexels Photo API’s to bring you random food images on different pages.

Essentially, I’ve chosen a modern set of technologies to ensure our platform is fast, reliable, and provides a great experience for you, whether you're tech-savvy or not!

Let's look behind the scenes to see how Yummunity brings together the food-loving community. The platform is intelligently designed in terms of architecture and user experience. I've attached the system architecture diagram and user flow wireframe built in Figma to help you see how everything fits together.

Modular Component System: Yummunity is designed on a modular front-end architecture that includes components such as 'Recipe Posts', 'Post Activity', and 'Authentication', allowing for scalability and ease of maintenance. Each feature, from blog/image/text post kinds to likes and comments, is isolated for smoother interactions and future improvements

Effective integration with external API’s: Yummunity uses third-party API’s such as Pexels API (for high-quality food photographs) and MealDB API (for curated recipe data). These are linked via specific service layers ('Pexels Service' and 'Meal Service') to maintain the data flow orderly and tidy.

Appwrite-powered authentication and backend: Appwrite powers user authentication, account management, and database interactions. This guarantees safe login/signup procedures and allows for dynamic features such as trending recipes, user data storage, and user-specific preferences.

Intuitive and Social-Media-Inspired Experience: Like other popular social networks, the home feed uses an infinite scroll approach, displaying a combination of text posts, recipe threads, and image uploads all related to food. Users may like, comment, share, and bookmark posts like they do on Instagram and Twitter.

Smart Content Posting & Profile Handling: Adding a post is simple. Users can post recipe threads (maximum length of 500 characters), upload images, and change or delete their material at any moment. Each user also gets a unique profile that tracks behaviour such as liked posts, saved material, and personal preferences.

Centralised Post Data Layer: Every action a like, a remark, or a share is associated with a core Post Data layer. This provides data consistency, fast retrieval, and effective backend processing. The entire flow keeps the user interested, and the interactions are quick and snappy.

Check out the wireframe : Check it out

Now, talking about challenges and learning, this was started way back in June 2024 because I participated in a Nights and Weekends 4-week program. Over there, you have to create only 1 project, which could be anything. So I decided to create a prototype of a food-based social network app. I started working on that, but within 3 weeks, I had to stop the project due to some other circumstances.

Now fast-forward to mid-September, I’ve a thought related to this yummunity project, and I already have a prototype of it, so what if I could make it and publish the live version of it? So I didn’t think twice, nor did I waste my time any more. I started working on it when I got the time. at the weekends as well as at night (that the program is all about), so I do learn and practice about TypeScript, Angular 18 and Angular Material, as well as Appwrite, along the side.

As well as I understand how the backend system works, how to use the API, improving my code logic to get the web app work properly and whatnot. The above image is of me fixing the bugs before the launch of my project at 2 am. I faced so many challenges while building this project, like how to integrate the proper API call and response with the web app.

The hardest part for me is implementing the comment part, saving the post, read more functionality and full post of the posted data. So these are a few that take me more time to build this stuff and debug at midnight. As you see, I’ve stated the time tracking for Feb 2025, and it is more than 160+ hours of work, and it may be more than 180+ hours, which I couldn’t track.

So lastly, I’ve learn so many things in these few months of the journey, especially when tackling those complex features and pushing through the long hours. It tested my patience and problem-solving skills, particularly during those late-night debugging sessions, but overcoming those hurdles has made me a more resilient and capable developer.

So if you are doing something similar but don't have the motivation, I would suggest you take the risk and gain the experience of it and how to build stuff Made in Public and deploy it into production.

Here are some potential future improvements for those features:

Gemini AI implementation: this feature is still on the development stage it will roll out in the upcoming phrase it help user to understand the what other user’s are posting recipes on that Gemini AI will help to get the health benefits and all other nutrition values and other data related to the post based on your dietary needs, preferences.

All data of food like health benefits and nutrition: As in the above pointer, I wanted to elaborate it even further, like we could enrich our recipe database with comprehensive information about the health benefits and nutritional value of each ingredient and dish. This would empower users to make more informed choices about what they eat.

Unique Yummunity rating: I have developed my unique rating system that goes beyond simple likes, perhaps incorporating factors like user feedback on taste, ease of cooking, and ingredient accessibility to give a more nuanced view of recipe quality.

Promote your post: We could introduce a feature that allows users to highlight their recipes or blog posts to a wider audience within the Yummunity, helping great content get discovered more easily.

Showing trending Recipes from different countries: Imagine a dedicated section showcasing the most popular and talked-about recipes from various countries around the world, allowing users to explore diverse cuisines and culinary trends.

Join different Yummunity clubs/teams: There would be a foster a stronger sense of community by allowing users to create or join clubs and teams based on shared interests like specific diets (vegan, keto), cooking styles, or even geographical locations, encouraging interaction and shared experiences.

Real-time chat: Implementing a real-time chat or collaborating feature within the platform would allow users to connect instantly, ask questions about recipes, share cooking tips, and build more direct relationships within the community.

Yummunity is more than just a recipe sharing site, it's a growing community built with scalable tech and a vision to connect food enthusiasts around it.

👉 Explore the code on GitHub

👉 Check it out live

👉 Check out Live on Product Hunt

If you’re passionate about food or love building open-source apps, feel free to contribute or give it a ⭐️ on GitHub! and upvote 🔼 on Product Hunt.

If you would like to contribute to our repository, you are most welcome, and aid the community towards the FOSS Development, please see the contribution md file from the repository.

Hey! 👋 I’m Pratap, a Frontend Developer with 2+ years of experience crafting digital experiences through code and design. I specialize in frontend web development and UI/UX design, Through this blog…