Ugh, sorry Darius,

I should have said Wikibase client (not Wikidata) extension.

Showcases: https://wikiba.se/

Besides PHP, there is Lua available which you might try your hand at (given you have some knowledge of Javascript as well for client side UI customization)
1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wikibase_Client

2. https://doc.wikimedia.org/Wikibase/master/php/namespaceWikibase_1_1Client_1_1DataAccess_1_1Scribunto.html
3. https://doc.wikimedia.org/Wikibase/master/php/md_docs_components_client-databridge.html