Progress on Lurp has halted – or has it? This is what’s been going on behind the scenes of the polling app you all know and love. In fact, some really big things are coming to Lurp.
11 October 2025, Arrenz
A few months ago, I basically completely stopped working on my app. But everything started long before that. When I think about it, the last big thing was probably version 0.4, which I posted about on Instagram over 10 months ago. Now we’re on version 0.8, and while some things have changed, nothing major has. You’ll notice we still haven’t hit that 1.0 mark, which would mark the official release of Lurp. So what’s really going on?
Version 0.4 brought us Lurp thoughts, post ratings, new feed filters, and tons of other updates. I had spent months redesigning the app structure, including the database and the front-end Flutter app. Then came comment likes, the ability to change both your vote and post rating, and updates to the UI, including a new icon pack. With 0.6 came a share button and a new “post page,” where anyone with the post link could view the post.
Naturally, I was constantly fixing bugs and improving minor things. Around this time (about 8 months ago), I ran into a pain-in-the-neck bug where the home feed would sometimes cut off after just a few posts and tell you you’re “caught up.” It ended up being related to how I mapped users to posts in the data layer, but it also made me implement Sentry, a bug monitoring service, which was kind of neat.
In version 0.7, I launched profile pages. You could now visit a lurper’s profile and view all their posts just by clicking their username. It was something new and refreshing but limited. Notice that all of these updates were purely front-end related. What I really wanted was stats on profiles, for example, but achieving that with my current setup—mostly Firebase—was very difficult. (Something had to change!)
Version 0.8 gave us some new themes — instead of just dark, we now also have coffee, the Lil’ Lars theme (more on that later), and LIGHT MODE (not that I’d ever use that…).
I wanted so much more for Lurp, but it was simply not possible. I had to change my back-end.
That’s how I began the journey to migrate Lurp’s back-end. I knew it wouldn’t be easy; it would take time, effort, and determination. But I also underestimated my own abilities in a sense. I didn’t know very much about SQL, let alone PostgreSQL, but after researching over a period of days—if not weeks—I decided that Neon was the way to go. I’ll write a more technology-focused post in the future if anyone’s interested.
Anyway, I started working, realizing that I’d have to learn a ton to finish the project. I also figured that since I’d be doing everything mostly from scratch again, I might as well tackle some other things I’d been wanting to change — like authentication.
Previously, the only way to sign in to Lurp was with Google. I have to admit, it was pretty convenient at times, but sometimes it simply wasn’t. And avoiding all the bugs and errors that came with Google auth, both on the web and Android, was a real hassle. So I thought: why not create my own auth solution? Hopefully you can see how things quickly started getting out of hand. I could have gone with an auth provider like Clerk, but since I figured doing it myself would be much cheaper, I didn’t.
But it didn’t end there — I also started thinking about the possibility of releasing more apps. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have the same account for everything? What I had in mind was Supercell ID. This, however, added yet another layer of complexity to what was supposed to be just a side project to the main database migration. The plan was to have one auth database as a single source of truth, and then automatically update the other apps’ databases when this one changed. In the end, I decided to put everything in the new Lurp database. After all, I’m still only making one app right now. Though, I wasn’t finished.
Ultimately, everything just got a bit out of hand. I bit off more than I could chew and ended up getting overwhelmed. Progress on Lurp halted and my motivation completely disappeared.
I still thought the united auth idea was really intriguing. Creating a separate entity could also be really beneficial for things that aren’t strictly Lurp-related. And so, Wopuff was born. Put simply, Wopuff is the company behind and maker of Lurp. Ultimately, I’ll put all the boring stuff like legal documents and the help center on the Wopuff website (wopuff.com, by the way). This way, I can create a clean separation between the fun and curious Lurp activities and the more serious Wopuff side.
Of course, I had to buy the wopuff.com domain, as well as wopuff.se, which redirects to wopuff.com/sv. Yes – the site is available in both English and Swedish! Unlike the static Lurp website made in Astro, Wopuff uses the Nuxt framework. After having worked with both, I’ve developed strong preferences for Nuxt. I18n (internationalization) was far easier. Nuxt is also based on Vue, which provides easy state management and dynamic interactions. So I got to work and started designing and implementing everything on the new website. I got it up and running pretty quickly, but ended up continuing to work on it right up until writing this very blog post.
Since the entire Wopuff website was available in two languages, I thought it made sense to also translate the Lurp website. However, I really didn’t want to get into all of that. After all, none of this really matters — all that matters is creating the Lurp app that people actually want to use. Changes to some static websites aren’t that important.
But I ended up translating the legal documents and Lurp blog posts anyway. That means this very article is available in two languages! You can toggle the language with the circle-shaped button at the top of the page. Of course, I used ChatGPT to translate everything into Swedish and got to work on the i18n setup in Astro to make everything function properly. Hopefully, this will also improve the site’s SEO — we’ll just have to wait and see.
If you go to the Wopuff home page, you’ll notice a cute lil’ guy to the right. His name is Lil’ Lars! This has been long in the making and I finally get to put him out there for the world to enjoy. Eventually, I’ll make an entire post about this pygmy marmoset and his fluffy ears and cute little feet. For now, just know that this is Lurp’s (or maybe even Wopuff’s) mascot!
The idea is to put the cute little guy everywhere in the app (well, not everywhere) to spread his joy and share his wisdom. He’ll be there when you can’t decide what to vote on in a poll, or when you realize you’re the only one who likes pineapple on pizza.
Personally, I can’t wait. Lil’ Lars is coming to Lurp!
Well, I’ve done a lot of things, but we still haven’t gotten our Lurp update. 😣 I recently got really motivated to work on Lurp again. The thing is, I have some great friends who’ve kept encouraging me to work on it. Without them, I most definitely wouldn’t have come this far.
Most of all, I want to thank Alexander for his never-ending support, encouragement, and Tore for never letting go of Lurp (he’s still posting stuff on Lurp to this very day).
I haven’t come this far just to give up — I’ll finally make it happen! First, I’ll finish my auth solution. I think I’ll also create a sign-in page on Wopuff, mostly for myself to check that the auth is working, but also for anyone who wants to edit their Wopuff account without doing it in the app. Then I’ll finish my edge function APIs that interact with the database. After that, I’ll finish the Flutter app and implement the new APIs. Lastly, I’ll migrate all the NoSQL data into the new and improved system (I’ll probably just make Gemini write some code for that).
As I said, more on this later — but I want to talk a bit about why I’m doing all of this. A big part of Lurp will be the stats. You’ll be able to enjoy your own and others’ stats on the profile page and see how they develop over time. For example, how much you agree with other lurpers and how many polls you’ve voted on. You’ll also be able to follow friends and other people that inspire you.
I also want to implement a recommended feed, like on most other social platforms. You’ll get to see the content on Lurp that you enjoy the most. I’ll also create new content types, like sliders! That’s something I’ve waited to do because I knew I’d be migrating, but as soon as I’m done, more stuff is coming to Lurp!
So there you have it: Lurp hasn’t changed a lot, but a lot has changed around Lurp.
I hope you enjoyed the longest post so far. 😁
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