Recommended tools

Everything else you need, from idea to scale

A few well-known tools for each job, in the order you will need them. No long lists, no prices that go stale.

Idea and design

Sketch it, write it down, decide what to build first.

Design

Figma Design screens and share them with others.
Excalidraw Quick hand-drawn sketches and diagrams. Free and open source.
Canva Graphics, social images and simple logos without a designer.

Notes and planning

Notion Notes, docs and simple project boards in one place.
Linear A fast issue tracker for small product teams.

Build

Where the code gets written, stored and checked.

Content and CMS

For blogs, docs and marketing sites.

Sanity A flexible hosted content editor for sites and apps.
Keystatic Edit content stored as files in your own repository.
Decap CMS An open-source editor that saves to Git.

Ship

Put it on the internet and give it an address.

Hosting

Cloudflare Hosting, global network, DNS and security. This site runs here.
Vercel Hosting from the makers of Next.js, with easy previews.
Netlify Hosting for static sites and apps, with forms and previews.
Fly.io Run full apps and databases close to your users.
Railway Deploy apps and databases with little setup.

Domains

Cloudflare Registrar Domains sold at cost, managed beside your DNS.
Namecheap A popular registrar with a simple dashboard.
Porkbun A friendly registrar with clear pricing.

Run the product

The parts a real product needs: data, sign-in, money, email.

Database and backend

Supabase Postgres database, sign-in and storage in one service.
Neon Serverless Postgres that scales down when idle.
Turso SQLite databases at the edge.
Firebase Google’s app backend: database, sign-in and hosting.

Sign-in

Better Auth An open-source sign-in library for TypeScript apps.
Clerk Hosted sign-in with ready-made screens.
Auth.js An open-source sign-in library with many providers.

Payments

Stripe Cards, subscriptions and invoices. The default choice.
Lemon Squeezy Sell software and let them handle sales tax as the seller of record.
Paddle Another seller-of-record option for software companies.
Polar Payments built for open-source and developer products.

Email

Resend Send sign-in and receipt emails from your code.
Postmark Reliable transactional email with clear delivery logs.
Loops Email to your users: onboarding and product updates.

Forms and feedback

Tally Free forms and surveys, no code.
Canny Collect and rank feature requests.
Crisp Live chat and a shared inbox for support.

Launch and grow

Get found, get listened to, learn what works.

Search

Google Search Console See how Google finds and ranks your pages. Free.
Bing Webmaster Tools The same for Bing, and a fast way to get indexed. Free.
Ahrefs Keyword research and backlinks.

Analytics

Cloudflare Web Analytics Page views without cookies. Free.
Plausible Simple, privacy-friendly website stats.
Umami Open-source, privacy-friendly analytics you can self-host.
PostHog Product analytics, session replays and feature flags.

Launch and audience

Product Hunt Launch to an audience that likes new products.
Beehiiv Grow and send a newsletter.
Buffer Schedule posts across social networks.

Keep it healthy

Know when something breaks before your users tell you.

Errors and uptime

Sentry Catch errors in your code and see what caused them.
Better Stack Uptime checks, logs and a status page.

Some of these links may be affiliate links. How we list and earn