Montreal developer behind Wizard Zines, illustrated guides to computing fundamentals
Wizard Zines, Mess With DNS, Memory Spy +2$101,558 in 2018
🇨🇦 17 makers · 62 products
Top 17 indie makers in Canada (2026)
Canada is home to 17 indie makers listed on IndieMakerList — #3 of 50 countries — led by Julia Evans, Adam Wathan and Jack Friks. Together they have shipped 62 products, 9 of them acquired. Most build in educators & course creators, and the most listed tool is Next.js. Makers are ranked by profile depth, audience and self-reported revenue.
17
makers
62
products
$357K/mo
combined revenue*
9
exits
Top indie makers from Canada
17 makers, ranked.
Creator of Tailwind CSS who built a multi-million-dollar business on open source
Tailwind CSS, Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI), Refactoring UI +4Mid-seven figures/yr
Self-taught Canadian solo builder of Post Bridge and a string of consumer apps
Post Bridge, Lovelee, Curiosity Quench +4$48.9K MRR
Canadian full-stack JavaScript teacher behind JavaScript30 and the Syntax podcast
Syntax, Wes Bos Courses
Co-founder and CEO of Transistor.fm, the bootstrapped 'calm company' for podcast hosting
Transistor.fm, MegaMaker, Marketing for Developers +2
Canadian CSS educator with 1,000+ YouTube videos and The Cascade course platform
The Cascade, CSS Demystified, Kevin Powell YouTube channel
Sold FeedbackPanda, wrote Zero to Sold, built Podscan in public (acquired 2026)
Podscan, FeedbackPanda
Co-founder of Tiny and MetaLab, buying and holding wonderful internet businesses
Tiny, MetaLab, Dribbble +1
WeddingLovely founder, Hello Web books author, GM at TinySeed and MicroConf
WeddingLovely, Hello Web App, Hello Web Design
Designer behind Refactoring UI, Heroicons and Tailwind's look, now at Shopify
Refactoring UI, Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI), Heroicons +1
Software engineer and sole owner of Fathom, the privacy-first Google Analytics alternative
Fathom Analytics, Serverless Laravel, SingleStore for Laravel
Creator of the Notion Mastery course and co-founder of Oki Doki
Notion Mastery, Oki Doki
iOS indie developer behind Apollo for Reddit, Pixel Pals and Juno
Apollo for Reddit, Pixel Pals, Amplosion +2
Montreal developer-educator behind CSS for JavaScript Developers and The Joy of React
CSS for JavaScript Developers, The Joy of React, Whimsical Animations
Former 3x startup CTO now running Spacestation Labs, a Reddit marketing agency
Spacestation Labs
Canadian developer building a portfolio of niche directories, AI tools and SaaS
aitools.fyi, Amazing Newsletters, Invoice Mama +2
Canadian developer who spent seven years making Tunic, the fox adventure about secrets
Tunic
Cities in Canada
Where makers in this country say they are based.
📍 Montreal · 2📍 Toronto · 2📍 Halifax · 1📍 Hamilton · 1📍 Kitchener · 1📍 Northern Ontario · 1📍 Vernon · 1📍 Victoria · 1
Revenue leaders in Canada
*Self-reported by the makers, at different dates, covering their whole business. Combined: about $357K/mo.
- 01
Adam WathanCreator of Tailwind CSS who built a multi-million-dollar business on open source
Mid-seven figures/yras of 2020 - 02
Jack FriksSelf-taught Canadian solo builder of Post Bridge and a string of consumer apps
$48.9K MRRas of 2026-10 - 03
Julia EvansMontreal developer behind Wizard Zines, illustrated guides to computing fundamentals
$101,558 in 2018as of 2018
Exits by indie makers in Canada
Utility-first CSS framework for building custom designs directly in your markup, installed 110M+ times per week.
by Adam Wathan
Premium library of professionally designed Tailwind components, templates and UI kits.
~$2M in first 5 monthsby Adam Wathan
Collection of task-oriented prompts and workflows for building good-looking UIs with AI.
by Adam Wathan
Web development podcast co-hosted with Scott Tolinski.
by Wes Bos
Earlier project now owned by Carl Alexander.
by Justin Jackson
Podcast intelligence platform that monitors millions of podcasts for brand mentions with full transcript search and AI-powered alerts.
by Arvid Kahl
Tech stack of indie makers in Canada
Most listed tools, by number of makers.
Products built in Canada
Wizard Zines
wizardzines.com
Illustrated programming zines and posters explaining computing fundamentals, sold as PDFs and in print.
by Julia Evans
M
Mess With DNS
messwithdns.net
Interactive playground for experimenting with real DNS records.
by Julia Evans
M
Memory Spy
memory-spy.wizardzines.com
Tool for running programs and inspecting their memory.
by Julia Evans
N
nginx playground
nginx-playground.wizardzines.com
Test nginx configurations instantly in the browser.
by Julia Evans
integer.exposed
integer.exposed
Visual explorer for how computers represent integers.
by Julia Evans
Utility-first CSS framework for building custom designs directly in your markup, installed 110M+ times per week.
by Adam Wathan
Premium library of professionally designed Tailwind components, templates and UI kits.
~$2M in first 5 monthsby Adam Wathan
Refactoring UI
refactoringui.com
Design book and video course for developers, co-written with Steve Schoger.
~$600K in 2020by Adam Wathan
Headless UI
headlessui.com
Unstyled, fully accessible UI components designed to pair with Tailwind CSS.
by Adam Wathan
Popular niches in Canada
Indie makers in nearby countries
North America first, then the largest communities.
Indie makers in Canada FAQ
Who are the best-known indie makers in Canada?
The best-known indie makers from Canada on IndieMakerList are Julia Evans, Adam Wathan, Jack Friks, Wes Bos and Justin Jackson.
How many indie makers are from Canada?
17 indie makers from Canada are listed, ranking #3 of 50 countries in the directory.
What do indie makers in Canada build?
The most common niches are Educators & Course Creators (10), Creators & Writers (10) and SaaS Founders (6). Together they have shipped 62 listed products.
Which cities in Canada do indie makers live in?
Cities mentioned in maker profiles include Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Hamilton and Kitchener.
How much do indie makers in Canada earn?
3 makers from Canada share revenue publicly, adding up to roughly $357K per month combined across 3 makers with a monthly figure. Reported figures include Adam Wathan (Mid-seven figures/yr (2020)), Jack Friks ($48.9K MRR (Post Bridge, verified)) and Julia Evans ($101,558 in 2018 (zine business)). Revenue is self-reported and from different dates.
Have indie makers in Canada sold their products?
Yes. 9 products by 6 makers from Canada are listed as acquired, including Tailwind CSS (Adam Wathan), Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI) (Adam Wathan) and ui.sh (Adam Wathan).
What tech stack do indie makers in Canada use?
The most listed tools among makers from Canada are Next.js (4), React (4), Tailwind CSS (3) and Stripe (3).
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