Vellor
Free MIT-licensed tutoring-management PWA — students, lessons, payments, invoices, offline on your device. Not note-taking; not SaaS.
SYS.STATUS: v4.2.0 shipped — offline-first tutoring OS, no backend, still my daily driver
Vellor is my free, open-source answer for independent tutors squeezed between expensive SaaS platforms and spreadsheets that were never built for teaching. It runs in a browser, installs as a PWA, and keeps student records on your machine — encrypted, exportable, deletable.
This page is the honest counterweight to README marketing adjectives. Vellor is a serious solo-tutor operations tool, not a school LMS, not a note-taking app, and not a replacement for an accountant.
What it is (scope)
Vellor manages the weekly rhythm of a private tutoring business:
| Surface | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Monthly income, unpaid fees, active students, overdue alerts, income charts |
| Students | Roster with parents, rates, subjects, lesson + payment history |
| Transactions | Quick-log lessons, payment statuses (Paid/Due/Partial/Overpaid), bulk actions |
| Calendar | Drag-and-drop scheduling; reschedule prompts on absent/cancelled |
| Achievements | Points, ranks, 25+ badges — optional motivation layer |
| Settings | White-label logo/accent, theme, currency, export/import, secure reset |
v4.0 was the Tutor OS pivot. v4.2.0 adds WhatsApp payment reminders, PDF invoicing, client portals (read-only Base64 URLs), financial forecasting charts, CSV import, keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+L, Shift+P), and proactive offline/backup UX.
Privacy model (accurate)
- No server — zero accounts, zero data harvesting, zero subscription
- AES-GCM encryption before writes to
localStorage(src/crypto.ts) - Recovery Key fallback + JSON export/import
- 14-day backup reminders — because local-only means you own disaster recovery
I previously claimed IndexedDB on this site. That was wrong. See the Power-Tutor mission log for the correction.
Who I built it for
- Independent tutors and private teachers who need rosters, payments, and invoices without SaaS lock-in
- Educators who work offline or on unreliable Wi-Fi
- Anyone who wants MIT-licensed code they can audit and fork
Not for: multi-teacher franchises needing centralized payroll, or anyone requiring automatic multi-device sync today (roadmap item — manual export/import is the current answer).
Fuckups & learnings
- Wrong storage story on my own portfolio. IndexedDB sounded plausible; the repo uses encrypted
localStorage. Dull truth beats gorgeous lies. - Gamification almost ate invoicing. Confetti and rank chrome crowded the payment path until I demoted celebrations to the Achievements page. Full story: gamification trap.
- Performance is trust. Virtualized rosters and O(N) filters exist because a stuttering search in front of a parent feels broken.
- PWA cache versioning hurts when schema migrations meet stale service workers — cold-start testing on slow devices is mandatory.
Honest limitations
| Limitation | Reality |
|---|---|
| Multi-device sync | Not shipped — export/import or wait for opt-in cloud sync on roadmap |
| localStorage size | Large multi-year rosters need periodic export as archive |
| Private browsing | Storage may not persist — not fixable in-app |
| Scope creep pressure | Every tutor wants different features; OS discipline required |
Deep-dive transmissions
Read these in order for the full story:
- Why Vellor exists and what it actually is — origin, scope, audience, repo link
- Tech stack rationale with honest tradeoffs — React/Zustand/Vite, localStorage + AES-GCM, what I refused to add
- Why it is free and what “zero terms” means — MIT license, no SaaS lock-in, not “no legal text”
- The gamification trap — when RPG chrome almost buried core ops
- Local-only backup reality — no server means you own disaster recovery
Supporting log:
- Power-Tutor mission log — operational diary, storage correction, performance/PWA fights
Run it locally
git clone https://github.com/dhaatrik/vellor.git
cd vellor
npm install
npm run dev
# Opens http://localhost:5173Tests: npm run test — 64 Vitest test files at v4.2.0 (478 cases; 63 passed / 1 failed in DashboardCharts.test.tsx when I ran main on 2026-07-01). README badge still says 33 — stale. CI: lint → test → build on every push.
Closing transmission
Clone it. Export your backups. Tell me where gamification still gets in your way. That is the point — free tooling with inspectable code and no tollbooth on student trust.
If you want the origin story, start with why-and-what. If you want the uncomfortable “what happens if I lose my laptop?” answer, read local backup reality.