i just wanted my own client

I never planned anything big. I was sitting around doing nothing and wondering: what is missing for me in telegram?

I tried a lot of forks. Some of them saved deleted messages and I used them, but not often. I wanted something of my own and cleaner. Something that doesn't depend on someone else's code, where I don't have to worry about what happens to my account. Something fully open.

I'm lazy, and digging through code by hand is hard for me. Then I was scrolling tiktok, looking for clients, and found inugram. Fully open, light, minimal, none of the plugin bloat. It suited me. I figured I couldn't turn it into something I don't want.

This was late July. I was still installing plugins for exteraGram, and on July 25 I created a Firebase project that was called just entaGram back then (yes, it was originally called entaGram, lol) and ran a free DeepSeek model in a terminal. There was no money for anything better. Claude showed up a little later, on a neighbor's subscription.

I thought: why not build my own patchset on top of this client. At first I only wanted plain inugram, but with the things it didn't have: local premium and saving messages. Its author didn't want those features, and it was easier for me to make my own.

My ideology is simple: if AI does the work for me, everything has to be open. I don't take credit for what isn't mine. So the code is open.

and then people came

I made the fork, the first APK, and the first person to join was someone from India. Then more people, then people in the chat started writing "it doesn't work for me". Then the client began getting mentioned on Reddit, on 4PDA, somewhere else. I barely paid attention. I was working as a cashier then, and I didn't care.

Then suddenly there were a lot of people. One day a hundred people joined the group in 24 hours, when there had been three hundred. I got dropped into a Persian chat about telegram mods, and people from the Middle East started asking for VPN, proxies, servers. I tried adding some, then removed them. They were offended. I didn't want to turn the client into a dump. I make it for myself.

Now the main channel has almost a thousand subscribers: 935. The chat has 165.

That's when I first understood what responsibility is. When you build something for yourself, you owe nobody anything. When you publish it, you're expected to listen. That was my biggest mistake, and it's on me.

a few numbers, so the scale is visible

I don't like bragging with numbers, but without them it's hard to see why this is so heavy.

• First steps on July 25, the entinyGram channel was created the same day, the group appeared on August 2, and the first release (v12.9.0, build 1000001) came out on August 4. Today the channel has 935 subscribers and the chat 165.
• The repository has about 1900 commits, though part of them are inherited from inugram.
• There are 645 patches in the stack, 218 of them mine.
• InuConfig has over 580 settings. Yes, that's too many. More on that below.
• Another 1350 commits since August 1.
• In my sessions with Claude since August 20 I counted 186 sessions and around 30 million output tokens. Cache reads are even bigger, about 17 billion, because every step re-reads the whole context.

To me these numbers mean one thing: this is not "a couple of buttons for myself". It's a project of hundreds of hours that I hold up alone.

what it looks like now

I wake up and immediately grab my phone. What bugs were reported, how many subscribers joined, what reactions, what people ask me to add. Then it loops. I can't go for a walk, I can't switch off. I'm fixated on optimization, on problems, on the channel. I used to not care, and now I'm chained to it.

At the same time I can't find a job. I need to save money and live on something. And you're kind of working, but none of it keeps you afloat.

There are around 550 people in the channel, 200 in the chat, 300 in plugins. And everyone wants something. And I work alone. I have no team and can't tell anyone "build this feature for me". I still sit with Claude, read bug reports, ask for logs and configs, listen. That's time I could have spent on something useful or on another project.

about donations

It feels like I look like someone who keeps asking for money. And I do sometimes mention donations: on my birthday, and on the "Support the project" page in the app. But I don't want to be the person who only asks for that.

I make the client for myself. For me donations are a way to somehow support the project: the AI subscription, server rental, other small costs. It all adds up, and I depend on it quite a lot. That's my problem, not yours.

To be honest about the scale: I have two thank-you cards. On October 9 the first one had eight people, from 2 hryvnia to two thousand. On November 10 the second has three: 200 hryvnia, 100 hryvnia and 1 GRAM. Someone also sent a gift worth 50 stars in telegram. In total that is roughly four thousand hryvnia from a few dozen people over all these months. Thanks to these people I paid the utility bills, the servers and the subscription. I'm very grateful to them. But it's not something you can live on, and it doesn't make me someone who "earns from the project".

my own problem

I noticed I've become very dependent on people. I'm very accommodating. People write and I say "sure, I'll do it". Even though that's not my call and I don't want it.

When someone is offended that I didn't add proxies or something like that and writes that I'm bad, it reinforces something else in me: I want to build for myself. For example, I personally use the client at a bare minimum. Like stock telegram with a few buttons, for example so it shows 1000 instead of 1K. That's it. Nothing else. So when people ask me to fix a feature I don't use, I just don't understand why I'd need it.

And there are over five hundred settings. It just happened: everyone asked for their own thing and I said "yes". Now I want to remove part of them myself. I'm even trying to clean out the junk and rewrite what's glitchy.

one day with a conflict

Recently I wrote in the channel that some patches were removed because a lot was rewritten in 13.2.0. I added that I make this fork for myself and don't want to add everything. Sorry.

The reactions were mixed. Someone wrote: "rip patches, I'll try to add some of them as plugins". Someone told those who don't like it to leave. Someone started defending me. There were insults too. Under the message there were many ❤ and a few 💔, so people do care. But in a moment like that you read the insults.

I answered harshly, then explained more calmly: I have no job and no stable income, I do all this with my own money and time, and I ask for respect for my limits. I apologized for being harsh.

why plugins

Plugins in entinyGram aren't a trendy feature. They are my way out of the "add this for me, add that for me" situation. Want something I don't need? Make it a plugin. Then it's yours, and you are responsible for it. And I don't have to carry it in the main code.

what i want people to understand

I don't want to depend on anyone. Not on those who donate, and not on those who demand.

I make entinyGram for myself. I never promised anyone I'd always add things. That you use it is your choice, and I'm grateful for it. But that doesn't mean I'm obliged to do everything people ask.

I'm open to reasonable feedback. I just can't take every "add this" and every insult.

what's next

I'll keep making the client. But slower, and for myself. I want to spend more time on what already exists: stability, optimization, making it not glitch. And not on one more feature I'll never use myself.

If you're missing something, there are plugins. If you don't like the direction, the fork is open too. And if you just like what came out, that's enough for me. Thank you for being here.