Monorepos are trendy. For a solo dev with three unrelated side projects, they're often overkill.
Use Multi-Repo When
- Projects are independent (blog, SaaS, CLI tool)
- Different deploy cycles and tech stacks
- You want simple mental boundaries
Use Monorepo When
- Shared UI components across apps
- API + frontend + mobile from one codebase
- Atomic changes across packages matter
I keep each side project in its own repo. My only monorepo is a SaaS with shared types between API and web app.