Reflecting on 2024

I know, I know — we’re already four months into 2025 and this update is a bit late. But hey, better late than never, right?

2024 was an interesting and impactful year at Macsi Digital. Here's a look at what we accomplished, what we learned, and a few thoughts on what’s ahead.

🧑‍💻 Client Work

We continued to support a range of existing client projects across the healthcare, learning, finance, and hospitality industries. We also welcomed new clients from the healthcare, publishing, and construction sectors — and we’re grateful for the trust they’ve placed in us.

💻 Open Source

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to dedicate as much time to our open source projects as we’d hoped. With the rapid pace of change in PHP, Laravel, and related ecosystems, many of our API clients need significant updates. As a result, we’ll likely be archiving some of these libraries in 2025. That said, we’ll continue to maintain a few core projects that we actively use internally.

🛠️ Our Own Projects

Once again, client work took priority, and we didn’t meet our internal product development goals. That said, we’ve built up a backlog of ideas, and in 2025, we aim to carve out time to bring some of them to life. Watch this space!

🍏 Back to Mac

In 2024, our trusty old PC (after 8 years of solid service) finally gave up. After much deliberation, we decided to make the switch back to Apple Macs.

So far, it’s been mostly positive! There have been a few minor teething issues (those new keyboard shortcuts...), but overall, the experience has been great. Tools like Laravel Herd work seamlessly on the Mac — far better than our previous setup with Homestead on PC. The performance gains and simplicity of Herd alone made the switch worthwhile.

⚙️ Laravel

Laravel remains our go-to framework for web applications. It’s been fantastic to see the investment in the ecosystem this past year. We're especially excited about Laravel Cloud and Nightwatch.

As long-time users of Forge and Envoyer, Laravel Cloud looks like a great complementary addition. We never found a use case for Vapor, but Cloud feels like a better fit for our workflow.

🛠️ Filament

Filament has become our admin panel of choice. Its ease of use, flexibility, and extensibility are truly impressive.

Since September, we’ve migrated six projects to Filament — averaging over one per month. These included transitions from other admin frameworks and custom-built panels. We've gotten quite good at it, to the point where we're considering offering it as a service: converting older projects to Filament while preserving their front-end features.

🧠 Cornerstone DICOM Viewer

Cornerstone 3D has been a game changer in terms of performance and capability. After over eight years of working with DICOM viewers, we've officially shifted all new projects to Cornerstone 3D.

Of course, we still support projects built on earlier versions and remain deeply familiar with the legacy libraries — but the future is clearly 3D.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Personal Life

2024 also brought personal challenges. Watching a parent go through chemo and radiotherapy, only to relapse shortly after remission, was incredibly difficult. Sadly, they passed away in early 2025. This loss has been deeply felt.

There were also moments of joy — personal achievements and milestones for the family. The kids are growing up fast, and we’re learning to cherish the small moments and spend our time wisely.

📌 Looking Ahead

As we head deeper into 2025, we're grateful for the amazing clients and partners we’ve worked with. We’re proud of the work we delivered, even if it meant delaying some internal goals. There’s always a balance — and we’re learning how to find it.

Here’s to new ideas, better balance, and meaningful progress in the year ahead.