Frequently asked questions

Engineers, developers and coders in every field: mechanical, civil, electrical, electronics, software, AI, robotics, data and more. Students, self-taught builders and working professionals are all welcome.

Yes, Buildfolk is free for everyone. There are no paid plans, subscriptions or membership fees. Creating an account, your profile and projects, feedback, analytics, Buildfolk Stage, communities, Opportunities, the Arcade and Buildfolk Social are free. If you use AI chat with your own OpenRouter API key, any charges on that key are between you and OpenRouter.

At least 13. Members aged 13–17 get teen safety settings, and a parent or guardian must agree before their account opens.

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act asks for a parent's or guardian's consent before a website uses the data of anyone under 18. After you sign up, enter their name and email. They get a link, read what Buildfolk does with your data, and agree. If nobody agrees within 7 days, the account and its data are deleted. Your parent can withdraw consent later with the link in their confirmation email.

To apply the age rules above. It is not shown to other members.

Check your spam or junk folder. Codes expire after 10 minutes, and you can ask for a new one after 60 seconds. Only the newest code works.

On the sign-in page, choose "Forgot password?" and enter your email. We send a reset code. Setting a new password signs out every other device.

Use a long password (at least 12 characters). Then turn on Account security → Sign-in protection, so a code is emailed whenever a new device signs in. We also email you when your account is used on a browser it hasn't seen before.

Not yet. Shopping is coming soon. We are getting it ready first, including everything the law asks of an online marketplace. We will announce it in the main community when it opens.

Places to talk with other builders by text and by voice. Every member belongs to the main Buildfolk community, and anyone can create their own community for a college, club, team, field or project. Open them from Communities in your workspace.

Buildfolk runs an official community for each field, and you are added to the ones for the fields you chose in your developer profile, so there are people to talk to from day one. You can leave any of them, and you will not be added again.

Type @ followed by someone's name in a community page to mention them, or press Reply on a message. They get a notification if they can read that page. People who blocked you, and members of another age group, are never notified.

Only the host of Buildfolk. Announcements are official news about the site, its rules and its events, and every member gets a notification when something new is posted.

No. To keep younger members safe, communities are either for adults (18 and over) or for teens (13 to 17), and you only see and join communities for your own age group. The main community has a separate lounge and voice room for each group; everyone reads the same Announcements.

No. The sound goes directly between the browsers of the people in the room, encrypted by the browser. Because it is peer-to-peer, the others in the room can see your network (IP) address. Up to 8 people can talk in a room at once.

The member who creates a community is its host. They can rename it, add text pages and voice rooms, rename or delete pages, remove members and delete messages that break the rules. A member can host up to 5 communities.

The public showcase of Buildfolk at /stage: a feed of members' projects and portfolios. Anyone can browse it without an account. Members can like, comment, save, share and follow builders.

Publish it from Submit Project. If you are 18 or over and your account is public, it appears on Stage automatically, and your public portfolio page lists all your projects. To take it off, hide or delete the project, or make your account private.

Yes, if they choose to. A member under 18 can turn on Show my projects on Buildfolk Stage on the Stage page. Their projects then appear as made by a "Teen builder": the work is shown, but never their name, photo, profile, follower count or links, and nobody can follow them from Stage. Only other members under 18 can read and write comments on their projects. They can turn it off at any time.

In screenshots and demo videos, teens should not show their face or say their name, school or where they live.

Yes. On Submit Project, add one demo video (MP4, MOV or WebM, up to 2 minutes and 20 MB) that shows your project working. It plays on the project page and on Buildfolk Stage. Videos should be about the project; anything else can be reported and removed.

A comment on Stage is feedback on the project, so it also appears on the project page, and the builder is notified. Visitors without an account see how many comments there are, not who wrote them. On projects by teen builders, only other members under 18 can read and write comments.

Full-screen short videos of up to 2 minutes (MP4, MOV or WebM, up to 20 MB during the beta) that play one after another.

Everyone on Buildfolk, unless your account is private. Then only followers you approve can see them. Teen accounts are private by default, and always private under 16.

To protect members from scams, links, phone numbers, emails, QR codes and payment requests are blocked in posts, comments, bios, About sections and chats.

You can add up to 5 links (for example GitHub, LinkedIn or your portfolio) in the Links list of your Developer profile. They must start with https://, and short links, chat-app links and payment links are blocked. When someone opens a profile link, Buildfolk reminds them they are leaving the site.

Use the report and block options on any post, comment, message or profile. Serious reports are reviewed quickly, and content can be hidden while we check it.

Only people you have both accepted as contacts. Adults cannot start chats or calls with teen accounts. Calls connect directly between the two browsers and are not recorded.

The Buildfolk team. Members can suggest an opportunity, but it is only listed after we check that the organiser is real, the link is official and nobody has to pay to apply. Even so, read the organiser's own terms before you apply, and never pay money or share a password to join anything.

Yes. Save an opportunity and you get a notification two days before it closes.

Open your project and use Built with to add them by their @name and role. They get a notification and the project shows on their portfolio once they accept. Teams are either all adults or all members under 18, and anyone can leave a team at any time.

An optional email, at most once a week, with new projects and opportunities in your fields and how many notifications you have not read. It is off unless you turn it on in Developer profile, and every email has a one-click unsubscribe link. It is only sent when there is something new.

Yes. When a member under 18 turns on Stage, each project is reviewed by the Buildfolk team first, to make sure no screenshot, video or text shows who they are. Any edit sends the project back for review. If a project is not approved, the teen is told why.

You connect your own OpenRouter API key and choose a model. Your chats go from your browser straight to OpenRouter, and are saved only in your browser. AI can make mistakes, so check anything important.

The 💬 Ask Buildfolk helper answers questions about how Buildfolk works. It only sees your own account. Each person gets a daily number of AI answers.

No. All 40 games are free, with no prizes or betting. High scores are saved on your device.

Yes. Go to Account → Your data. You can download everything we hold about you, or delete your account. Indian law asks us to keep your sign-up details locked away for 180 days after you delete your account, then they are deleted. See the Privacy Policy.

Only essential ones, to keep you signed in and secure. Analytics cookies are used only if you accept them. See the Cookie Policy.

Email nexushubcodebased@gmail.com. For complaints, contact our Grievance Officer, Tenali Prem, at nexushubcodebased@gmail.com.