Why I built this
The technology finally made this obvious to build, and I cared enough about the problem to build it properly.
Hi, I'm Aslan Farboud
I'm a builder. I love shipping clean, useful software that solves real problems. Since 2022, I've specialized in LLM-based applications — and I've watched the technology get dramatically better and cheaper.
Track4U came from a personal need. I wanted to track my food intake, but every existing app felt painfully slow. Search a database, scroll through results, estimate portions, repeat. The friction was killing me.
Then I realized: GPT-5.2 Vision is now incredibly good at analyzing food photos, and it costs about a penny per scan. The software to tie it together isn't rocket science. So I built what I wanted to use.
Why now?
This project only makes sense because of where AI is today. A year ago, vision models were either too expensive or not accurate enough. Now, GPT-5.2 can identify a plate of food and estimate macros with impressive accuracy — for roughly $0.01.
The underlying software problem here isn't complicated. It's a camera, an API call, and a clean interface. What matters is the execution: making it fast, making it reliable, and not overcomplicating it.
I built Track4U because the technology finally made it obvious, and I genuinely wanted this tool for myself.
How I built it
Optimized for speed
I wanted to log meals in seconds, not minutes. Every interaction is designed to minimize friction. Photo → macros → done.
Good enough accuracy
80% accurate estimates you actually log beat 99% accurate entries you skip. I optimized for consistency over perfection.
No business model games
You bring your own API key, you pay OpenAI directly. I don't take a cut. The software is free. That's the whole deal.
Open source
I enjoy building in the open. Every line of code is public. Fork it, self-host it, learn from it — it's all there.
Built with modern tech
Track4U is built on a modern, robust stack designed for performance, developer experience, and ease of self-hosting.
Next.js 16
React framework
TypeScript
Type safety
Tailwind CSS
Styling
shadcn/ui
Components
Drizzle ORM
Database
Turso
SQLite edge DB
NextAuth.js
Authentication
Recharts
Visualizations