I agree and people generally build off of other people's work. It being visual or technical. Here it's hard to deny that visually it was "inspired" by the other

I agree and people generally build off of other people's work. It being visual or technical. Here it's hard to deny that visually it was "inspired" by the other project. To me, it would be completely fine if you're upfront about it. For example "I saw this project (link) but didn't like how the recommendation system worked so I built a better one (new link)".