The products, tools and technologies I use on a daily basis to get things built
I got the idea for this page from Wes Bos's /uses/ page. I think it's great to share the tools and workflows we use, and I myself often get asked things like what editor I use, what's my tech stack for my projects, and what products I use to give them the best chance of success. Below is my current "Indiehacker stack".
This is of course an ever-changing array of things, but I'll keep it updated as best I can, and I'm more than open to suggestions for improvement.
Btw - where I can, I've added affiliate links (marked with $ sign). I'm only linking to products I use on a daily basis and personally vouch for - nobody's paid to be listed here. If you want to sign up to anything, I'd appreciate clicking the link, it might buy me a coffee or two :)
Analytics
$ - Simple Analytics. All the way. I love it.
It's easy to set up (especially with Vue), privacy focused, and is run by two guys who are passionate about what they do. I love that I can support them.
Domain names and Hosting
- Domainr for domain name searching
- Namecheap for domain name registering
- $-DigitalOcean - use this link for $50 credit if you're signing up ;) for hosting certain things like this blog.
- $-Railway for hosting web apps like for Nuxt3 - see aihairstyles.com for example
Marketing
- $-Mailchimp (use this link for $30 credit) for email markeing. Quick and easy to set up and get moving with, and has a generous free plan.
CDN and Payments
- Cloudflare - they've got a free tier and it's really easy to set up and use.
- Stripe for handling any payments
Hardware
- 2015 Macbook Pro 15 inch.
Editor and Terminal
- VS code as text editor (although I do look back on Sublime Text fondly sometimes)
- Hyper as terminal - very clean UI and nifty features like copy-paste
Blog framework & theme
Ghost blog, with the Advant theme
App Framework
This can obviously differ from project to project, but I usually try to keep it as minimal and simple as I can, without restricting the product's growth. My go-to options for the moment are
- Standard HTML, CSS and jQuery for a quick page that doesn't need to do much (for instance, jobb.ie)
- Vue.js - for both single page apps and static-websites (Nuxt for static websites).
- Express.js with Nodejs server-side for API work.
- Ionic for any mobile-specific applications I need to get up and running
- Handelbars.js for any non-Vue templating requirements.
- Tailwindcss.com for my CSS framework. Love it.
- Firebase for all database requirements.
Chrome Extensions
Other
- Google Sheets
- Google notes
TinypngSquoosh, $-Imagekit.io for image compression- Figma for SVG and other graphic work
Image credit Christopher Burns