I built a study-abroad app for international students — just shipped it on the App Store 🎓

Replit Teams
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Hey Replit community! :waving_hand:

After months of building (and a lot of late nights), I finally shipped my first iOS app on the App Store — and Replit was the home base for the whole thing.

The problem I wanted to solve

Helping students who want to study abroad is messy. Programs, deadlines, tuition, language requirements — info is scattered across hundreds of university websites, often in languages you don’t speak. I went through this myself and thought: there has to be a cleaner way.

Meet My University :graduation_cap:

A mobile app that puts study-abroad info in one place:

  • :classical_building: Browse universities and programs by country, field, and budget
  • :robot: An AI tutor that answers questions about applications, motivation letters, visa basics — in plain language
  • :globe_showing_europe_africa: Multi-language support (English, Spanish, Ukrainian)
  • :mobile_phone: Built for iOS first (Android coming soon)

:backhand_index_pointing_right: App Store: ‎My University: Study Abroad App - App Store
:globe_with_meridians: Web: https://my-university.pro

The stack (all glued together on Replit)

  • :mobile_phone: Mobile: Expo + React Native
  • :globe_with_meridians: Web: React + Vite + Tailwind
  • :gear: Backend: Express 5 + PostgreSQL + Drizzle ORM
  • :locked_with_key: Auth: Clerk
  • :credit_card: Subscriptions: RevenueCat
  • :rocket: Deployed via Replit + EAS Build

Replit’s monorepo workflow + AI assistance honestly saved me weeks. Being able to spin up the API, web, and mobile artifact side by side in one workspace made iteration fast.

A small ask :folded_hands:

If anyone here has thought about studying abroad — or just wants to support a fellow Replit builder — I’d really appreciate it if you:

  1. Download the app and try the AI tutor (it’s free to chat)
  2. Leave an honest review on the App Store :star: — even one line helps a ton with discoverability
  3. Drop feedback in the comments — what’s confusing, what’s missing, what would you add?

Happy to answer any technical questions about the stack, EAS build pipeline, RevenueCat setup, or anything else. Always learning.

Thanks for reading :raising_hands:

2

Looks awesome :clap:
I’m on Android so I can’t test iOS directly, but I may send it to a friend with an iPhone. Congrats on shipping the App Store release :rocket:

1 Like
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What do you think about building an app versus just having web applications that work on mobile in terms of building your user base. I haven’t built any mobile apps yet, but I’m planning to on my newest project because it sends a lot of alerts to users. I currently have three published apps that are primarily designed to be used on mobile, LocalMusicX.com, http://WordsYouKnow.app and TalkToMeNowAndLater.com (brand new). I’m primarily interested in basic testing on different devices to see if you’re able to log in, and what your general impression is of the usability of the application.

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Great question! I can actually compare all three right now from real data (zero paid ads):

:bar_chart: 3-month results:

  • Desktop web: ~600 visitors
  • Mobile web: ~550 visitors
  • App Store (iOS): 65 downloads in just 5 days

The App Store traction is clearly stronger per day, even without any promotion — just organic discovery through search.

For your alert-heavy use case, I’d go native app without hesitation. Push notifications alone make it worth it, and the App Store gives you a built-in discovery channel that web just doesn’t have.

I’m still experimenting — just shipped a simple puzzle game built on Replit, and have two more apps in review right now: one for building healthy habits, another for creating AI friends and chatting with them in your own AI environment. Curious to see how each one performs differently by niche.

Happy to compare notes as you build yours!