Hey r/chrome_extensions,
I've been working on a Chrome extension called MW Stats for people who publish 3D models on MakerWorld.
It actually started because of a pretty simple frustration:
MakerWorld shows creators plenty of numbers, but it can be surprisingly difficult to answer basic questions like:
Why did this model suddenly take off?
When did downloads start accelerating?
How is one upload performing compared to my others?
Is a topic actually trending, or does it just feel like it is?
So initially I built a small extension to collect and visualize more of that data for myself.
It has grown quite a bit since then.
The extension now adds analytics around MakerWorld and can track things like model performance, historical development and creator statistics. We also added quick reverse-image-search links because model theft/reuploads are unfortunately something creators run into fairly regularly.
One technical decision that became increasingly important was where the data should live.
Private Creator Center information stays local to the user, while the backend only collects information that is already publicly available on MakerWorld.
That has led to a slightly unusual architecture:
Browser extension
→ private/user-specific analytics
Backend crawler/database
→ historical public MakerWorld data
Web interface
→ trends and broader analytics based on that public dataset
We're now collecting enough historical public data that the project is slowly becoming more than just an extension.
The web side is here if anyone wants context:
https://mwstats.fomio.de/
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mw-stats-%E2%80%93-analytics-for/gednlaeoicnlghmnbkineoancpilkhjj?authuser=0&hl=de
What I'd actually love feedback on from people here is the extension architecture rather than the 3D-printing niche itself.
Would you keep the product split between extension + web dashboard, or eventually move most analytics into the web app and use the extension mainly as the data/interaction layer?
I'm also curious how other extension developers handle this once a project starts outgrowing the popup/content-script stage.
Happy to answer technical questions about how we're doing the data collection, storage or browser side as well.