I saw a hot comment a few days ago:
Are those online projects that spend a few minutes a day and earn more than 10,000 yuan a month?
I'm curious too.
However, instead of listening to other people's stories, I simply went to GitHub and searched for a few keywords:
- passive income
- Make money (make money)
- affiliate (affiliate marketing)
It took two days to read More than 100 related open source projects。
There was only one conclusion:
90% are pits.
None of the remaining 10% is truly "making money while lying down", but some people do make money, and as long as the method is right, there is a full chance of developing into long-term income without working.
I have sorted out all the projects worth seeing and the pits I have stepped on.
ˇLet's talk first, what do those pits look like?
After going through so many projects, I found that scams basically can't escape four routines.
① Mining and hanging up
The propaganda words are always:
"Idle computers to make money."
As a result, your computing power was indeed used up, and the electricity bill did rise.
The only thing that hasn't increased is the balance.
② Automatic click to make money
It claims to automatically swipe advertisements, automatically hang up, and automatically make money.
In fact, it is either inducing the installation of Trojans, or using various platform vulnerabilities to collect wool.
You may make tens of yuan in the short term, but your account will soon be blocked.
③ Running plate
The packaging is the most professional.
There are many official websites, white papers, communities, and revenue screenshots.
After you invest real money...
The next day, the group was gone.
The project is gone.
④ Selling shovels (the most concealed)
This category is not strictly considered fraud.
The project itself is open source and free.
But someone wrapped it up as:
"A sideline course worth 1999 yuan."
In fact, the source code has always been on GitHub and can be downloaded for free.
Most of the things you buy are just someone else reading README for you.
Come with something that can really land on.
📖 Direction 1: Content subscription, turning readers into members
① Ghost (54,000)
An open source paid content platform.
It can be understood as:
Public account + Knowledge Planet + Email subscription combination of.
Support:
- send articles
- member management
- paid reading
- Email Newsletter
- Subscription charges
The biggest advantage is not the function, but:
Users belong to you, not platform algorithms.
Many independent creators abroad rely on it to make paid newsletters to achieve stable subscription income.
② MoneyPrinterV2 (31,000)
Short videos are generated in one sentence.
Script, picture matching, dubbing, subtitles, and editing are completed fully automatically.
There are two main ways to play:
Play one
Create overseas Short videos accounts such as YouTube Shorts and TikTok in batches.
Earn platform advertising share.
how to play
Help local merchants generate promotional videos in batches.
Each item charges tens to hundreds of yuan.
Although the production quality is not amazing, the biggest advantage is:
High efficiency and mass production can be achieved.
Direction 2: Taking orders, working remotely, and making money with skills
③ TheRemoteFreelancer（⭐7533）
The biggest headache for many programmers and designers is not ability, but:
I don't know where to find reliable customers.
This project brings together various remote order-taking platforms, outsourcing websites, and developer communities around the world.
If you have a little skill yourself.
This is the type of project that I think will monetize the fastest.
There is no routine.
It's about making money by skills.
④ awesome-remote-job (47,000)
If the last one was a project.
This one is to find a formal job remotely.
It lists corporate and recruitment websites that support Remote around the world.
Updates are also very frequent.
If you don't want to start a business for the time being, you can try to find a remote job first.
Income is stable and risks are low.
④ Open Source Bounties
This is one of the most easily ignored ways to make money.
Many open source projects will be released:
Bug fixing reward
or
New feature rewards
You can get a bonus when you complete the requirements, submit the PR, and the code is merged.
The amount ranges from tens of dollars to thousands of dollars.
More importantly:
Every successful submission will become your collection of works.
The more you do it, the more valuable it becomes.
Direction 3: Make your own product and turn one-time income into continuous income
④ open-saas (15,000)
If you know a little code.
This is my most recommended direction.
It has already done it for you:
- login
- payment
- user system
- subscription management
You just need to put your ideas in and you can quickly launch a SaaS product.
Why recommend?
Because subscription income is one of the few business models that truly have compound interest properties.
An example:
200 users per month.
Pay $5 per person.
That's a steady amount of $1000 a month.
Of course.
The real difficulty is never development.
Instead:
Find the problem where people are really willing to pay.
When I was making products before, user feedback was scattered in WeChat, emails, and app store comments.
The information is too fragmented and I don't know what to change first.
Later, we began to use Feedlog to automatically summarize and analyze feedback to sort out repetitive issues, core requirements, and key factors that affect retention, making product decisions much easier.
⑦ Invoice Ninja（⭐9961）
These things are almost always encountered when receiving overseas customers:
- invoicing
- management customers
- Urge payment
- management contract
Invoice Ninja has basically completed all these processes well.
If you plan to accept overseas projects in the future.
This is a very practical tool.
Direction 4: Help others make money and earn your own service fees
⑧ best-deals-bot
This is an automated deals blog.
Automatically grab e-commerce discounts every day.
Automatically generate articles.
Automatically bring an alliance commission link.
Someone purchases goods through your link.
You get a commission.
Almost the entire process can be completed automatically.
Of course.
It's not tools that really determine income.
Instead:
There is no traffic.
Dify (
This is one of the hottest AI projects in the past two years.
Many companies spend thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan to build AI customer service, AI knowledge base, and AI assistant.
In fact, many at the bottom level are inseparable from such tools.
The biggest advantages are:
There is no need to delve into the big model.
As long as you can configure processes and access data, you can create AI applications that can be delivered to customers.
If deployed with AI programming tools, it will be more friendly to novices.
Direction 5: Research-based tools suitable for long-term accumulation
Qlib (
This is Microsoft's open source AI quantitative investment research platform.
Contains:
- factors of
- Policy backtesting
- risk analysis
- combinatorial optimization
But be careful.
It is just a research tool.
Not a money making machine.
Research ability ≠ investment return.
Don't use tools as the secret to making sure you make money.
All projects that are truly profitable have one thing in common
After looking through more than 100 GitHub projects, my biggest feeling is:
All publicity:
- zero threshold
- lying to earn
- Daily income exceeds a thousand
- Make money automatically
Basically, it deserves to be vigilant.
Almost all projects that can truly make money in the long term solve a specific problem.
For example:
If you want to make money from content.
Ghost can help you build a platform.
But what really determines revenue is whether you can continue to export content that others are willing to pay for.
If you want to do SaaS.
Don't be big and comprehensive from the beginning.
First solve a need that is specific enough and painful enough.
I met a friend who is doing home improvement.
The biggest contradiction between customers and designers is not poor design.
Instead:
The two sides couldn't understand at all.
Later, he began to use the AI floor plan tool and could quickly generate a version of the house layout plan based on a few sentences from the customer.
Customers can understand it at a glance.
Communication time has been directly shortened by more than half.
What is really valuable is never the tool itself.
But it helps others solve problems.
written in the end
GitHub has never lacked money-making projects.
What is really scarce is:
The ability to identify scams.
and:
The patience to continue doing the right thing.
Therefore, I increasingly agree with two sentences:
Don't believe in making money lying down.
But we can believe that if the system is set up properly, revenue will continue to occur.
These two sentences seem to be only a few words apart.
The way of thinking behind it determines whether you are chasing the wind or accumulating long-term value.
If you are ready to try a direction now, I would suggest starting from Open source reward or Remote order receiving Start.
There is no need to invest money first, feedback is quick, and you can make money while accumulating works.
This is often much more reliable than looking for the so-called "secret recipe for getting rich".