About Project

ColibriSM was the previous version of what is now ColibriPlus. This version has been abandoned because ColibriPlus completely replaces it with modern architecture and technology.

Why It's Rebuilt?

The main reason we decided to rebuild from scratch was that ColibriSM was built with a self-written engine using server-side rendering, lacking the reactive technologies that projects like social media applications require.

ColibriSM was a hybrid solution that used many different libraries without any package managers - everything was installed manually. We were using Bootstrap and Semantic UI components, but none of them were actually utilized since the UI had its own custom design that wasn't based on Bootstrap.

This approach led to numerous problems:

• Unused CSS and JavaScript bloating the codebase
• Constant need to override Bootstrap styles
• Outdated libraries that were difficult to maintain
• No clear dependency management
• Technical debt that kept accumulating

ColibriSM Architecture

The primary reason ColibriSM avoided modern frameworks was customer demand.

Most customers wanted to install the colibri-sm on shared hosting environments that don't provide control to install dependencies or use package manager tools.

The main customer requirement was simple: upload files and have it ready to use immediately.

The only dependencies were PHP and MySQL database - no other configurations were needed. This seemed like a customer-friendly approach at first.

However, as customers began requesting real-time features, live streams, APIs, and other modern functionalities, it became clear that ColibriSM's architecture couldn't support these requirements.

Technical Reality

In short, ColibriSM was a self-written solution that was:

• Not scalable
• Not reactive
• Lacking modern features
• Extremely difficult to support from a development perspective
• Not following any modern web development patterns, architecture, or code design principles

All these factors were killing the great potential of this project. It was almost dead in the water.

Customer Problems

Customers often don't understand these technical limitations. They only see the low price and long list of features, but these features become useless when the underlying code isn't designed to be maintainable or scalable.

For example, if a customer plans to build a real social media platform and invests significant money to add or customize features, everything eventually becomes lost, useless, and impossible to support properly.

In the end, the inevitable fact that the project would need to be completely rewritten from scratch would make ColibriSM a disservice to its customers - promising something it fundamentally couldn't deliver long-term.

I decided to stop this nightmare and start developing from scratch, which became ColibriPlus.

World Class Technology

This new version can finally hold its head high because it's built on world-class technology and industry best practices.

Even though ColibriPlus isn't perfect from my perspective, it's still built on:

• Best architecture practices
• Modern development standards
• Developer-friendly frameworks

Even if an individual customer decides to deeply customize ColibriPlus, they'll be working with:

• Laravel (PHP framework)
• Vue.js (JavaScript framework)
• Tailwind CSS (utility-first CSS)
• Other modern technologies

They won't be dependent on my custom code or limited by my individual thinking. They'll be working with industry-standard tools that have massive community support and documentation.

Personal Reflection

I realize I'm not a perfect software engineer, but I did my best with the knowledge and skills I had at the time.

I understand there will always be better ways to implement features and solve problems. If tomorrow I discover better approaches, I will implement them.

The worst thing would be to do nothing at all.

Journey

I spent 1.6 years developing the first version of ColibriPlus. I live and breathe this project every day.

I'm not a robot - I'm a human being. I'm not perfect, but I gave everything I had to create something that customers can actually build upon and grow with, rather than hit a wall after initial success.

ColibriPlus represents not just a technical upgrade, but a fundamental shift toward sustainable, scalable social media platform development.