ProteinRater

Summary

Driven by my interest in healthy eating and a near-monthly purchase of different protein powders, ProteinRater is an independent, community-driven platform that helps users discover and compare protein supplements through ratings from real consumers. Products are evaluated across four practical categories: taste, mixability, value, and ingredient quality, with scores automatically aggregated into overall product rankings. Users can browse products and brands, filter and sort the catalog by nutritional information and ratings, compare two products side by side, and bookmark products for later. Registered users can publish, edit, and delete reviews, vote on helpful reviews, post anonymously, and manage their activity through personal profiles. I built the application with Django and PostgreSQL, using server-rendered HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend. It also integrates Google OAuth, email verification through Resend, Amazon S3 media storage, and structured data for search engine optimization.

Feature List

• Multi-Category Ratings: Products are rated independently for taste, mixability, value, and ingredient quality
• Community Rankings: Review scores are automatically aggregated to rank products overall and highlight category leaders
• Product Discovery: Search, pagination, and filtering by brand, protein type, caffeine content, nutritional values, and rating
• Flexible Sorting: Sort products by overall score, individual rating categories, popularity, calories, protein content, or protein-to-calorie ratio
• Side-by-Side Comparison: Compare the ratings and nutritional information of two protein products
• Review Management: Authenticated users can create, edit, and delete one review per product
• Helpful Review Voting: Community members can mark reviews as helpful and sort feedback by usefulness
• Saved Products: Users can bookmark products and access them from their personal profile
• Secure User Accounts: Email verification, password recovery, Google OAuth, and protected account management
• Anonymous Reviews: Reviewers can hide their identity while retaining ownership and editing controls
• Brand Directory: Dedicated brand listings and profile pages with associated products and rankings
• Search Engine Optimization: Product structured data, aggregate rating metadata, sitemaps, and robots.txt support
• Admin Data Management: Django Admin and import/export tools simplify management of brands, products, users, and reviews