21 ms·

Ask HN: Tools of the trade, 2013 edition

494 points by sharjeel 14y ago

Few years ago, Joshua Schachter started this thread on HN for discussing hosted useful services: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1769910 The contribution in thread introduced many interesting SaaS services which can immensely help in deploying services as well as development. It's been three years since then. What do we have today?

stevecash 14y ago
Ok guys! Now take a look at these smart *aaS (SaaS, PaaS,...): http://welovesaas.com/appdirectory/ http://welovesaas.com/appdirectory/
sharjeel 14y ago
Here is mine: Twilio (www.twilio.com) - Communicate with your users over SMS and Voice Stripe (www.stripe.com) - Payments processing simplified BugHerd (www.bugherd.com) - WYSIWYG bug reporting Discourse (www.discourse.org) - Upcoming discussion board
olegp 14y ago
getsentry.com - error logging clicky.com - real time analytics irccloud.com - IRC in the browser sendgrid.com - API for sending e-mail
- vacipr 14y ago
  Is irccloud actually sending invites ? I've seen some users on hn complain about this.How long did it take before you received yours ?
  - olegp 14y ago
    I received my invite from somebody else using the service.
    - infinitone 14y ago
      Hey, can you invite me please? Thanks!
  - ig1 14y ago
    You just need to get an existing user to invite you.
    - vacipr 14y ago
      Is the number of invites limited ? If no,can you please send me one ? I'd rather use this over mibbit on my chromebook. (email in my profile)
      - earnubs 14y ago
        Invite sent.
        vacipr 14y ago
        Thank You.
endtwist 14y ago
Harvest ( http://getharvest.com http://getharvest.com ) - Time tracking and invoicing for freelance work SendGrid ( http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com ) - API for sending and tracking email Lighthouse ( http://lighthouseapp.com http://lighthouseapp.com ) - Issue tracking for teams Trello ( http://trello.com http://trello.com ) - Task tracking, lists Stripe ( http://stripe.com http://stripe.com ) - Fast, easy payment processing BundleScout ( http://bundlescout.com http://bundlescout.com ) - Third-party library update tracking (shameless plug, but I use BundleScout at BundleScout)
- joeblau 14y ago
  Why did you go with stripe over braintree?
- potomak 14y ago
  Tomatoes (http://tomato.es http://tomato.es) - Time tracker and pomodoro timer
smadam9 14y ago
Graylog2 (http://graylog2.org/ http://graylog2.org/) - Log management & analytics in browser Torch (for hosted Graylog https://www.torch.sh/ https://www.torch.sh/)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
philippeback 14y ago
hipchat - IM parse.com - API integration symbaloo.com - entry points collection teamviewer - screen share
bfirsh 14y ago
Here are a few that we use. Airbrake (http://airbrake.io/ http://airbrake.io/) - Exception logging. Campfire (http://campfirenow.com/ http://campfirenow.com/) - Chat. Librato (https://metrics.librato.com/ https://metrics.librato.com/) - Hosted graphing. Mixpanel (http://mixpanel.com/ http://mixpanel.com/) - Analytics, people tracking. Pagerduty (http://www.pagerduty.com/ http://www.pagerduty.com/) - Monitoring alerts. Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com/ http://sendgrid.com/) - Sending emails. Sprintly (https://sprint.ly/ https://sprint.ly/) - Project management. Tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com/ http://www.tarsnap.com/) - Offsite backups. As well as all the obvious ones - GitHub, Google Apps, Dropbox, etc.
borski 14y ago
Hipchat (http://hipchat.com http://hipchat.com) - team collaboration Stripe (http://stripe.com http://stripe.com) - payments Mandrill (http://mandrill.com http://mandrill.com) - email Tinfoil Security (http://tinfoilsecurity.com http://tinfoilsecurity.com) - web security Help Scout (http://helpscout.net http://helpscout.net) - help desk / customer support
camz 14y ago
Stripe ( http://stripe.com http://stripe.com )- Payment processing Sendgrid ( http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com )- Sending emails Autotax ( http://autotax.me http://autotax.me )- Automated 1099 & sales tax filing Trello ( http://trello.com http://trello.com ) - Trask tracking New Relic ( http://newrelic.com http://newrelic.com ) - Server/app monitoring
instakill 14y ago
Airbrake (http://www.airbrake.io http://www.airbrake.io) Jenkins New Relic (http://www.newrelic.com http://www.newrelic.com) Jira (http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview)
bearwithclaws 14y ago
I use these for Hacker Monthly (http://hackermonthly.com http://hackermonthly.com): SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com) - transactional emails (sending digital issues to subscribers). MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com http://mailchimp.com) - newsletter. Linode (http://linode.com http://linode.com) - VPS hosting. Harvest (http://getharvest.com http://getharvest.com) - invoicing (for corporate customers + advertisers). FetchApp (http://fetchapp.com http://fetchapp.com) - digital delivery (for single issue purchase). Previously used E-Junkie. PayPal - payment gateway (sadly, one of the only choice for Malaysian). Gumroad (http://gumroad.com http://gumroad.com) - I use this as a 'PayPal alternative' for customers who wish to pay directly with their credit card (and refuse to have anything to do with PayPal). Pivotal Tracker (http://pivotaltracker.com http://pivotaltracker.com) - project management for HM's backend app ODesk (http://odesk.com http://odesk.com) - finding and managing my remote team (currently in the size of 4).
- petercooper 14y ago
  What sort of things do you have the folks on ODesk doing? Support, editorial..?
spo81rty 14y ago
Hosted TFS Stackify - app ops Twilio sms SendGrid email Chargify - billing software Pusher - web sockets
Flavius 14y ago
Moqups (https://www.moqups.com/ https://www.moqups.com/) - Wireframing tool Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com/ http://sendgrid.com/) - Sending emails Braintree (https://www.braintreepayments.com/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/) - Payments Deployd (http://www.deployd.com/ http://www.deployd.com/) - Quickly design and build APIs Github (https://github.com/ https://github.com/) - Project hosting and issue tracker
- gadr90 14y ago
  Oh my god, Deployd is incredible! How come it's not in the front HN page forever? Seriously now, this is pratically open source Parse!
  - methehack 14y ago
    I agree -- wow! Seems like it also competes with firebase. And it seems like it would also be useful in some cases where you'd otherwise use meteor or derby.
cmadan 14y ago
Here is what we use 1. BitBucket (http://www.bitbucket.org http://www.bitbucket.org) - Source code hosting 2. Google Docs (http://drive.google.com http://drive.google.com) - Team Collaboration 3. BitBucket Issues (http://www.bitbucket.org http://www.bitbucket.org) - Team Collaboration 4. Heroku (http://www.heroku.com http://www.heroku.com) - PaaS/sysadmin replacement 5. Hirefire (http://www.hirefireapp.com http://www.hirefireapp.com) - Scale up/down dynos on Heroku based on traffic 6. Mongolab (http://www.mongolab.com http://www.mongolab.com) - Database-aaS 7. Pusher (http://www.pusherapp.com http://www.pusherapp.com) - WebSockets-aaS 8. Filepicker (http://www.filepicker.io http://www.filepicker.io) - Uploading files to the application 9. Mailgun (http://www.mailgun.com http://www.mailgun.com) - Send & Receive Mails 10. PaperTrail (http://www.papertrail.com http://www.papertrail.com) - Error Logging (Rails) 11. Errorception (http://www.errorception.com http://www.errorception.com) - Error Logging (JS) 12. Desk.com (Knowledge Base + Customer Support)
- siddhant 14y ago
  PaperTrail URL should be https://papertrailapp.com/ https://papertrailapp.com/ :)
sergiotapia 14y ago
I STRONGLY recommend Asana: http://www.asana.com http://www.asana.com It's like using a smart piece of paper that just gets out of your way and let's you create, assign, toggle, set dates, etc really intuitively. I'm a freelancer - and for my usage I typically have a Workspace called Freelance Projects. In that workspace I have many projects, each for each freelance gig I land. I then invite my client (YOU CAN INVITE UP TO 30 PEOPLE PER PROJECT FOR FREE HOLY BALLS) and collaborate intuitively from there. He/she can upload photoshop files, images, text files, edit desriptions and I can comment on them and we go back and forth. Better than email. I used to procrastinate a lot. It was my achille's heel; but since Asana I enjoy working because there's something deeply psychological in ticking things off and seeing them grayed out.If you haven't checked it out. There's also Trello but I kind of dislike it when there are more than 5 items in a list. It gets unwiedly.
- corresation 14y ago
  That looks like a fantastic product. You mentioned creating a freelance workspace and then projects for each gig, but don't you invite/share at the workspace level? How do you configure per project permissions to the applicable client?
- reddit_clone 14y ago
  Very interesting. How is it pronounced? Asana like in Yoga?
  - mhartl 14y ago
    The company pronounces it as-AH-nuh rather than AS-uh-nuh.
  - c_t_montgomery 14y ago
    Yep
- mars 14y ago
  dude, your shift key is broken. you might wanna get a new keyboard.
preinheimer 14y ago
Where's it Up - http://wheresitup.com/ http://wheresitup.com/ (Global ping/dns/traceroute tools)
todsul 14y ago
Vero (http://getvero.com http://getvero.com) - email A/B testing & re-marketing Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) - task/project/team management Stripe (http://stripe.com http://stripe.com) - credit card payment processing Helpscout (http://helpscout.net http://helpscout.net) - email support system Plus the usual suspects: AWS, GitHub, Mailgun...
rschmitty 14y ago
I still find the Atlassian OnDemand suite to be the most complete thing for teams after we out grew BaseCamp/GitHub: http://www.atlassian.com/software/ondemand/overview/ http://www.atlassian.com/software/ondemand/overview/ BitBucket: just like github (git, wiki, issues, pull requests etc) only priced that makes sense for private repos. We just use it for git however because... JIRA: Way better issues/bugs/feature tickets, built in optional time tracking. Good support for Agile teams with GreenHopper Confluence: A real wiki Bamboo: continuous integration/deployment. When you commit to git with a JIRA ticket number and a build fails its easier for everyone (non-technical people) to see what is causing the failed build The other big plus is user management to all of the above, you can create client accounts if needed and they can create/close tickets or work on wiki with you. HipChat is nice because your non technical people participate easier, irc previously had just been developers You can probably get all of these things free individually but its worth the small $ to have them all work together seamlessly, plus 1 account vs many is always a big plus for adoption -------------- SplunkStorm: https://www.splunkstorm.com/ https://www.splunkstorm.com/ log practically anything server related and put it into dashboards/timelines. Alerts in the works
garrettdimon 14y ago
I've been assembling a list of these lately for a book that I'm working on. (http://startingandsustaining.com http://startingandsustaining.com) Some of the categories are fairly loose as some apps don't fit nicely into categorical buckets, but hopefully this is a helpful list. --Browser/Email Testing BrowserStack (http://www.browserstack.com http://www.browserstack.com) Litmus (http://litmus.com http://litmus.com) --Bug/Issue Tracking BugHerd (http://bugherd.com http://bugherd.com) Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com http://lighthouseapp.com) Sifter (http://sifterapp.com http://sifterapp.com) (Disclaimer: I built this.) --Planning & Project Management Sprintly (http://sprint.ly http://sprint.ly) Podio (https://podio.com https://podio.com) Flow (http://www.getflow.com http://www.getflow.com) Interstate (http://interstateapp.com http://interstateapp.com) Basecamp (http://basecamp.com http://basecamp.com) Apollo (http://www.apollohq.com http://www.apollohq.com) Pivotal (http://www.pivotaltracker.com http://www.pivotaltracker.com) Asana (http://www.asana.com http://www.asana.com) Trello (https://trello.com https://trello.com) Blossom (https://www.blossom.io https://www.blossom.io) Trajectory (https://www.apptrajectory.com https://www.apptrajectory.com) --Business & Traffic Analytics KissMetrics (http://kissmetrics.com http://kissmetrics.com) MixPanel (http://mixpanel.com http://mixpanel.com) DigMyData (http://digmydata.com http://digmydata.com) --Continuous Integration / Code Quality Travis (https://travis-ci.org https://travis-ci.org) Circle (http://circleci.com http://circleci.com) CodeClimate (http://codeclimate.com http://codeclimate.com) Sempaphore (https://semaphoreapp.com https://semaphoreapp.com) --Dashboards Ducksboard (http://ducksboard.com http://ducksboard.com) Geckoboard (http://www.geckoboard.com http://www.geckoboard.com) Instrumental (https://instrumentalapp.com https://instrumentalapp.com) --Error/Exception Handling Sentry (https://getsentry.com https://getsentry.com) Coalmine (https://www.getcoalmine.com https://www.getcoalmine.com) HoneyBadger (https://www.honeybadger.io https://www.honeybadger.io) BugSnag (https://bugsnag.com https://bugsnag.com) Raygun (http://raygun.io http://raygun.io) --Log Monitoring Loggly (http://loggly.com http://loggly.com) Papertrail (https://papertrailapp.com https://papertrailapp.com) LogEntries (https://logentries.com https://logentries.com) --Billing & Payment Processing Braintree (https://www.braintreepayments.com https://www.braintreepayments.com) Stripe (http://stripe.com http://stripe.com) Pin (http://pin.net.au http://pin.net.au) PayMill (http://paymill.com http://paymill.com) Recurly (http://recurly.com http://recurly.com) Chargify (http://chargify.com http://chargify.com) Spreedly (http://spreedly.com http://spreedly.com) Spreedly Core (https://core.spreedly.com https://core.spreedly.com) --Support/Help Desks Desk (http://desk.com http://desk.com) HelpScout (http://helpscout.net http://helpscout.net) ZenDesk (http://zendesk.com http://zendesk.com) Groove (http://groovehq.com http://groovehq.com) Intercom (http://intercom.io http://intercom.io) Tender (http://tenderapp.com http://tenderapp.com) --Transactional Email Postmark (https://postmarkapp.com https://postmarkapp.com) Mandril (http://mandrill.com http://mandrill.com) MailGun (http://www.mailgun.com http://www.mailgun.com) SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com) CloudSMTP (http://www.cloudsmtp.com http://www.cloudsmtp.com) CritSend (http://www.critsend.com http://www.critsend.com) Postage (http://postageapp.com http://postageapp.com) --Email Collection/Landing Page Apps Launchrock (http://launchrock.com http://launchrock.com) Unbounce (http://unbounce.com http://unbounce.com) KickoffLabs (http://www.kickofflabs.com http://www.kickofflabs.com) Launch Effect (http://launcheffectapp.com http://launcheffectapp.com) Prefinery (https://www.prefinery.com https://www.prefinery.com) LaunchGator (http://launch.deskgator.com http://launch.deskgator.com)
veesahni 14y ago
Trello ( http://trello.com http://trello.com ) - task tracking Clicky ( http://clicky.com http://clicky.com ) - lightweight visitor analytics Pingdom ( http://pingdom.com http://pingdom.com ) - monitoring AWS ( http://aws.amazon.com http://aws.amazon.com ) - infrastructure Stripe ( http://stripe.com http://stripe.com ) - payments Mailgun ( http://mailgun.com http://mailgun.com ) - transactional email Postmark ( http://postmarkapp.com http://postmarkapp.com ) - more transactional email Mailchimp ( http://mailchimp.com http://mailchimp.com ) - non-transactional email SupportFu ( http://www.supportfu.com http://www.supportfu.com ) - lightweight customer service
pkrefta 14y ago
OT - Maybe should we also add native apps ?
- sharjeel 14y ago
  I think you can get a lot of information from UsesThis (http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/)
n9com 14y ago
1. JIRA (Issue Tracking) 2. BitBucket (Source code hosting) 3. Desk (Customer Support) 4. MailChimp (Newsletter / Email marketing) 5. ServInt (Web hosting)
- fideloper 14y ago
  I'm glad to see ServInt on your list - we've happily used them for something like 7 years. Awesome host.
olegp 14y ago
I'm actually working on a web app directory as part of https://starthq.com https://starthq.com - sign up to receive a reminder when it launches next week.
mgkimsal 14y ago
Browser testing: http://saucelabs.com http://saucelabs.com
Johnyma22 14y ago
Travis (http://travis-ci.org http://travis-ci.org) Github Bitbucket Etherpad (http://etherpad.org http://etherpad.org)
Johnyma22 14y ago
Travis (http://travis-ci.org http://travis-ci.org) Github Bitbucket Etherpad (http://etherpad.org http://etherpad.org)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
alexmic 14y ago
These are tools (not just SaaS services) I've used in the past as part of a team or on my own projects. ------------- Collaboration ------------- 1. Yammer (https://www.yammer.com/ https://www.yammer.com/) 2. Basecamp (http://basecamp.com http://basecamp.com) 3. Limechat for IRC client (http://limechat.net/mac/ http://limechat.net/mac/) 4. Flowdock (http://flowdock.com http://flowdock.com) 5. Asana (http://asana.com http://asana.com) 6. Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) ---------- Deployment ---------- 1. Chef (http://www.opscode.com/chef/ http://www.opscode.com/chef/) 2. Fabric (http://fabfile.org http://fabfile.org) ---------- CI ---------- 1. Jenkins (http://jenkins-ci.org http://jenkins-ci.org) ----- Email ----- 1. Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com) 2. AWS SES (http://aws.amazon.com/ses/ http://aws.amazon.com/ses/) 3. Gmail (http://gmail.com http://gmail.com) 4. MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com http://mailchimp.com) 5. Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/) 6. Fractal (https://www.getfractal.com/ https://www.getfractal.com/) -------------------- Monitoring & Logging -------------------- 1. Graylog2 (http://graylog2.org/ http://graylog2.org/) 2. Statsd (https://github.com/etsy/statsd/ https://github.com/etsy/statsd/) 3. Graphite (http://graphite.wikidot.com/ http://graphite.wikidot.com/) 4. Geckoboard (http://www.geckoboard.com/ http://www.geckoboard.com/) 5. PaperTrail (https://papertrailapp.com/ https://papertrailapp.com/) 6. Pingdom (https://www.pingdom.com/ https://www.pingdom.com/) --------- Analytics --------- 1. Mixpanel (http://mixpanel.com http://mixpanel.com) 2. Segment.io (http://segment.io http://segment.io) 3. Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/ http://www.google.com/analytics/) -------------- Issue Tracking -------------- 1. Github Issues (http://github.com http://github.com) 2. Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com/ http://lighthouseapp.com/) ------ Others ------ 1. Silverback (http://silverbackapp.com/ http://silverbackapp.com/) 2. Wufoo (http://www.wufoo.com/ http://www.wufoo.com/)
sgt 14y ago
It certainly seems that these startups have the potential of jointly keeping themselves alive.
jonsherrard 14y ago
The only to-do list you'll ever need: http://workflowy.com http://workflowy.com
llimllib 14y ago
The only ones my company uses that haven't yet been mentioned are Google Hangout and GoToMeeting. We use both because Hangouts have given us issues on some networks. Also, our chatbot is critical to the way we work and lives on hipchat (but has adapters for campfire and jabber): https://github.com/markolson/linkbot https://github.com/markolson/linkbot
jbobes 14y ago
Cloudiff Server monitoring / Cloud management http://cloudiff.com/demo http://cloudiff.com/demo
halis 14y ago
For invoicing and time trackingI would humbly submit my own startup: halis (http://halis.io http://halis.io)
smagch 14y ago
Why no one mentioned about Zapier? https://zapier.com/ https://zapier.com/
- spo81rty 14y ago
  We use Zapier at Stackify and love it. 2 thumbs up
- variousbagels 14y ago
  How is this different/better than https://ifttt.com https://ifttt.com ?
- bryanh 14y ago
  Thanks for the mention! :-)
josscrowcroft 14y ago
[Plug:] Open Exchange Rates (https://openexchangerates.org https://openexchangerates.org) – free or very cheap currency conversion data JSON API. Built by a developer for other developers. :o)
- jtheory 14y ago
  This is useful - how are most places using it? I'd suggest making a drop-in script or two something like the extensions Stripe has been adding on a bit at a time, to make it easy to use this for in-page on-the-fly currency conversion... That is, select your currency from the dropdown, and all prices elsewhere on the page will display in the local currency selected.
disclosure 14y ago
Accept Bitcoin as payment: http://www.weusecoins.com/ http://www.weusecoins.com/
philjackson 14y ago
It's mine but hopefully ApiAxle is useful to API developers: http://apiaxle.com http://apiaxle.com
8ig8 14y ago
FreshBooks (http://www.freshbooks.com http://www.freshbooks.com) is fantastic for invoicing. That's the primary reason we use it, but it also tracks time, expenses and is moving towards a full accounting offering.
pwman 14y ago
https://LastPass.com https://LastPass.com http://Gotomeeting.com http://Gotomeeting.com http://Drive.google.com http://Drive.google.com
damon_c 14y ago
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned WePay for payment processing. Their api is excellent and they fill some specific needs that I haven't seen addressed anywhere else.
sidcool 14y ago
I am impressed with how frequently Asana, Trello and Stripe have featured there.
seldo 14y ago
This is our current list; I'm ignoring ones we've stopped using or haven't really started using properly yet. Github - obviously AWS - obviously Ylastic - easier AWS management Sendgrid - mail delivery Stripe - payment processing Pingdom - external uptime tracking PagerDuty - ops alerting and scheduling Xero - accounting JIRA - task management (the hosted version at Atlassian) Desk - support tickets Crashplan - personal machine backups Google Docs/Mail - everything else Others have been mentioning Fabric, Puppet, Graphite, Nagios -- we use these but they're not hosted services, so not sure they fit.
- guelo 14y ago
  I don't think Github is an "obviously" unless you have an open source project. It's really not that hard to set up a git ssh server
  - simonw 14y ago
    The GitHub web interface is SO much better than running your own repository. Pull requests are awesome for code reviews, the code browsing interface is best of breed, and if you use their issue tracker and/or wiki everything links together fantastically well.
    - Silhouette 14y ago
      The GitHub web interface is SO much better than running your own repository. And all you have to do is trust probably your second most valuable asset to an external service outside your organisation... What could possibly go wrong?
      - gatherknwldg 14y ago
        Your cash is a valuable asset to your startup, too, but people don't store that in-house. Who do you trust more, github or Wall Street?
        deleted 14y ago
bconway 14y ago
Already some pretty extensive lists here, but no mention yet of LeanKit: http://leankit.com/ http://leankit.com/ I've found it to be excellent.
wslh 14y ago
I wonder why nobody is talking about OTRS: http://www.otrs.com http://www.otrs.com as an excellent ticketing system.
nanch 14y ago
I made http://tarbackup.com http://tarbackup.com for encrypted off-site backups using existing open-source tools. I hope it will make it to your list of "recommended services" by the end of 2013.
lucidquiet 14y ago
There's also this newer Planning and Project Management tool, that was just released: https://zingproject.com/ https://zingproject.com/ -- not the best name but none ever are. The interesting thing about this is that it's built around a streaming so that you can see everyone else's edits as they occur.
minhajuddin 14y ago
Timelogger (https://github.com/minhajuddin/timelogger https://github.com/minhajuddin/timelogger). A command line tool which allows you to maintain a log of your time spent on various activities/projects/tasks, with decent reporting.
halayli 14y ago
http://webmon.com http://webmon.com external website & network monitoring
Bharath1234 14y ago
--Helpdesk Freshdesk (http://www.freshdesk.com http://www.freshdesk.com)
asenna 14y ago
I was just doing some research on this recently and found this amazing article by Vccafe - http://www.vccafe.com/startup-resources/ http://www.vccafe.com/startup-resources/ The links are all in the article.
JangoSteve 14y ago
Because you specifically are asking about "services", this is may be slightly off-topic, but I'd be interested in seeing a thread about open-source alternatives as well. When we were first starting out, we used a lot of these services and they were absolutely instrumental to get us going, allowing us to focus on what mattered at the time. But the more we developed our rhythm and workflow, the more we started constantly running up against small idiosyncrasies with each service that we were powerless to fix (we always submitted feedback, sometimes they'd implement our idea, sometimes they wouldn't). Maybe this app had an awesome interface, but their status labels were odd given the usual workflow. Maybe this other app was perfect in every way but had no API to allow us to tie it into the rest of our process. Anyway, we started switching from services to open-source products, which really allowed us to take our process to the next level and optimize everything specifically for our flow. For example (italics are open-source): --------------------- Project Management: Email => Basecamp => Pivotal => Redmine (and tried Asana but went back to Redmine) --------------------- Issue Tracking: Email => Github Issues => Redmine --------------------- Continuous Integration: CruiseControl => Integrity => TDDium (https://www.tddium.com https://www.tddium.com) / Semaphore (https://semaphoreapp.com https://semaphoreapp.com) --------------------- Error/Exception Tracking: ExceptionNotifier => Airbrake => Errbit --------------------- Time Tracking & Invoicing: Harvest => Cashboard (http://www.cashboardapp.com http://www.cashboardapp.com) --------------------- Group Chat: Campfire => [currently looking into] Kandan --------------------- Code Collaboration: Self-hosted SVN => Unfuddle => Github --------------------- Design Collaboration: Pixelapse => ConceptShare --------------------- You'll notice the only non-open-source services we still use are Github, Cashboard, TDDium/Semaphore, and ConceptShare. For the open-source services, we're able to host most of them on Heroku and rarely ever have to worry about maintaining them, other than security patches and whatnot. And we've been able to do some pretty cool things internally as far as connecting the different apps, since we have control over the APIs and underlying code, allowing us to add and change as needed. You'll also notice that for CI, we actually went in the opposite direction from open-source to service-based. I have an entire writeup (not yet published) on why I actually found CI to work best for us as a 3rd-party service.
- casca 14y ago
  Any reason you chose RedMine over ChiliProject (https://www.chiliproject.org/ https://www.chiliproject.org/)? Also, I'd support any effort to collate good self-hosted options for startups.
jasonhanley 14y ago
I've found that http://www.bestvendor.com/ http://www.bestvendor.com/ and http://alternativeto.net/ http://alternativeto.net/ are nice sites to figure out tool stacks. BestVendor even lets you put together your own customized lists: http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/tool-stack-for-pmrobot-a-mobile-optimized-project-management-web-app http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/tool-stack-for-pmrobot-a-mob...
amac 14y ago
AWS Google Apps Google Analytics Blogger MailChimp Drupal Desk Facebook Twitter GitHub Worldpay
csomar 14y ago
I'm not sure about the current trends, but here is my list for 2012-2013 - Github (http://github.com http://github.com) for Open Source and private source code control. - Bitbucket (http://bitbucket.org http://bitbucket.org) mostly private source code management. - Linode (http://linode.com http://linode.com) Where I run my virtual servers. - Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) Manages all my projects - Basecamp (http://basecamp.com http://basecamp.com) some clients still use it. - Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics http://google.com/analytics) Sticking with Google. - Freshbooks (http://freshbooks.com http://freshbooks.com) For invoicing matters. - ahref (http://ahrefs.com http://ahrefs.com) Tracking my backlinks. - Skype (http://skype.com http://skype.com) P2P calls and VoIP. - Google App (http://google.com/a http://google.com/a) Planning to move this year, still on the free plan. - Gmail (http://gmail.com http://gmail.com) still no plans to move yet!
dalacv 14y ago
is there anything in here that is a landing page builder + recurring payment collection?
St-Clock 14y ago
In terms of SaaS, we use: github (code review is the killer feature) campfire jira + greenhopper (no killer feature :-( ) notableapp (so-so interactions with our designers) balsamiq (quick & easy mockups) crashplan (easy and cross-platform backups) google apps google analytics (we have a crazy setup) I am currently looking into splunkstorm for our log analysis. We are using monit and mmonit (on premise) for alterting and monitoring. For my open source projects, I use: github travis-ci sourceforge (for the mailing list. any suggestions for alternatives?)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
vccafe 14y ago
Vendorstack created an info graphic of the top startups for startups tools, I spiced it a bit more and posted a super tools list on VC Cafe link: http://www.vccafe.com/2013/01/24/startups-startups-top-b2b-tools-startups/ http://www.vccafe.com/2013/01/24/startups-startups-top-b2b-t...
amarsahinovic 14y ago
http://piwik.org/ http://piwik.org/ Open source alternative to Google Analytics
DanielRibeiro 14y ago
Steven Blank seems to be keeping a pretty nice list up to date: http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/
- sblank 14y ago
  Updated http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ to include link to this page and most of these tools
reledi 14y ago
I have a gist that I update frequently https://gist.github.com/dideler/1718200 https://gist.github.com/dideler/1718200. It needs some cleaning up though.
karanbhangui 14y ago
Surprised no one has mentioned Vagrant [1]. By far the best addition to my tool-set this year. [1] http://www.vagrantup.com/ http://www.vagrantup.com/
somlor 14y ago
Paydirt (https://paydirtapp.com https://paydirtapp.com) - Time tracking and invoicing. SerpBook (http://serpbook.com http://serpbook.com) - Search engine rank tracker. Mortar (http://mortardata.com http://mortardata.com) - Hadoop-aaS.
rafadhs 14y ago
I assembled my 150+ lists list at www.tuneyourstartup.com Will add the ones suggested here. Thanks for sharing, everyone.
- rafadhs 14y ago
  Ops. Here is the link: http://www.tuneyourstartup.com http://www.tuneyourstartup.com Let me know what you guys think. And please add tools if you can´t find that one you love.
snambi 14y ago
Nice list
trendspotter 14y ago
Before I found this overview and your comments here today, I started two other similar overviews. One on Quora and the other on Bestvendor. Here they are: http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-are-some-notable-startups-for-startups http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-are-some-notable-startups... http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/startup-tools-for-startups http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/startup-tools-for-startups Here is a copy of my older post on Quora, please take a look at my newer BestVendor list (see link above) as well: - SETUP http://www.getdash.com/ http://www.getdash.com/ (currently down or pivot) - Claim your brand name claim.io Trademarkia - Workspace and office space Loosecubes LiquidSpace 42Floors - MANAGEMENT - Business Analytics Geckoboard Chartio - Cloud Aggregation and Unified Activity Streams Hojoki Flowdock Zapier Otixo Cloudbot Refinder dispatch.io busyflow.com 300.mg cloudsnap.com manybots.com tractionstream.com clutchapp.com jaconda.im - Business Intelligence GoodData - Contractor Management oDesk Elance - Communication Yammer Salesforce Chatter Socialcast - Coordination, Collaboration Zoho Podio Asana Trello Basecamp Huddle Planbox Teambox Dropbox - Resource-Planning Erply - Human Resources (HR) Workday (software) - Social CRM NimbleCRM capsulecrm.com Batchbook - Cloud integration SnapLogic - Expenses Expensify - Invoicing Tradeshift FreshBooks - Time Tracking getharvest.com toggl.com - Customer Support Assistly Zendesk Olark SnapEngage - Feedback UserVoice Get Satisfaction Intercom - Content Management Acquia (Drupal) - Wiki MindTouch - BACKEND Cloud Hosting Heroku Engine Yard - Database Cloudera - Virtualization Skytap - Storage Pure Storage - Mobile Backend Urban Airship Parse - WebSockets Pusher - Cloud Telephony, SMS Twilio Tropo - Payments, Billing Stripe Recurly Zuora Spreedly Chargify - Code repository GitHub Beanstalk - API Management Mashery Apigee - DEVELOPMENT iOS Testing TestFlight - Issue Tracking Pivotal Tracker Sifter lighthouseapp - Monitoring New Relic Airbrake (iOS Bug tracking) Crittercism (iOS Bug tracking) - DESIGN Mockups/Wireframes/Workflows Balsamiq InVisionApp Mockingbird Axure RP Mockflow OmniGraffle Mockup Builder HotGloo - MARKETING - Email MailChimp SendGrid Mailjet - Social Media Buddy Media Sprout Social - Beta Invite / Landing Page Management LaunchRock Prefinery KickoffLabs - Pre-Launch UsabilityHub - Video Vimeo Ooyala - Analytics Chartbeat Mixpanel Optimizely App Annie Distimo - Infographics Visual.ly
leadsrain 14y ago
LeadsRain (http://leadsrain.com http://leadsrain.com)
ataleb52 14y ago
There is far too much awesomeness on this thread...thank you for asking this question!
yonasb 14y ago
Awesome post. I've listed out my "Cloudstack" on Leanstack at http://alpha.leanstack.io/users/yonasb http://alpha.leanstack.io/users/yonasb. Just launched the alpha would love some feedback from you guys, just ping me at yonas@leanstack.io if you're interested or sign up on the site. Thanks!
shirkey 14y ago
Passpack (http://www.passpack.com http://www.passpack.com) for centralized password sharing among remote team members. Previously using Keepass, which is great but difficult to sync. Yes, passwords in the cloud -- I never thought I'd do it either.
tomdidom 14y ago
Tom's Planner http://www.tomsplanner.com http://www.tomsplanner.com for the Planning & Project Management category
thoughtcriminal 14y ago
Jumping in to make one recommendation: Hitsniffer, real-time analytics: http://hitsniffer.com http://hitsniffer.com I've used them for several years now and they are awesome.
codemoran 14y ago
What we use at graphdat. Source code: http://www.github.com http://www.github.com We could host our own server, but github is really convenient and our SDKs are open source so its easier. Workflow & Issues: http://huboard.com/ http://huboard.com/ Given we use github, huboard makes it easy to mange the issues Build: http://jenkins-ci.org/ http://jenkins-ci.org/ and https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano Such a nice setup, we host our own jenkins server, I have seen some links above to Travis, might give that a spin. Tickets & Wiki: http://www.uservoice.com http://www.uservoice.com Its a love/hate relationship with uservoice. They make some things easy, others are so arcane. I'm adding in a wiki article right now with some images in it. But uservoice doesn't let you host an image, so I put it into an S3 bucket, add the link to uservoice and there is a security error. I go back to the bucket, reset the security settings and uservoice is caching the image error and wont let me add the images, so I need to edit the source. So hard for something so simple. Team Communication: https://www.flowdock.com/ https://www.flowdock.com/ We were using Campfire, but we like flowdock much better. Threaded conversations are still tough, I actually miss Google Wave. We had 1 wave a day, it starts to grow on you. Log Aggregation: http://graylog2.org/ http://graylog2.org/ Very cool once you get it all working together Server Metrics and Application Analytics: http://www.graphdat.com http://www.graphdat.com We dog food our own product, so it's our servers on the homepage.. Some other notable candidates: 'your personal website': http://backstit.ch/ http://backstit.ch/ handy to monitor a couple of feeds 'tech news aggregator': http://skimfeed.com/ http://skimfeed.com/ nice way to skim some news
- jwarzech 14y ago
  Awesome to hear that your using backstitch! (I'm one of the Co-Founders). If you get a chance I would love to talk with you about how your using it and what you would like to see from the service. Please feel free to ping me at jordan [AT] backstit.ch
delirious 14y ago
This list was pretty helpful. http://www.meetup.com/SF-Growth-Hackers/pages/Growth_Hacking_Tools/ http://www.meetup.com/SF-Growth-Hackers/pages/Growth_Hacking... The SF growth hackers talk about the tools a lot in their meetup if anyone is interested in learning more about them.
bradezone 14y ago
Pagoda Box: https://pagodabox.com/ https://pagodabox.com/ A Heroku-esque deployment app specially tuned to PHP apps. Full of useful options. I love it.
maximveksler 14y ago
Excellent post. Y HN CAN HAZ NO BOOKMARKs?

494 points by sharjeel 14y ago

stevecash 14y ago

Ok guys! Now take a look at these smart *aaS (SaaS, PaaS,...): http://welovesaas.com/appdirectory/ http://welovesaas.com/appdirectory/

sharjeel 14y ago

Here is mine: Twilio (www.twilio.com) - Communicate with your users over SMS and Voice Stripe (www.stripe.com) - Payments processing simplified BugHerd (www.bugherd.com) - WYSIWYG bug reporting Discourse (www.discourse.org) - Upcoming discussion board

olegp 14y ago

getsentry.com - error logging clicky.com - real time analytics irccloud.com - IRC in the browser sendgrid.com - API for sending e-mail

vacipr 14y ago
Is irccloud actually sending invites ? I've seen some users on hn complain about this.How long did it take before you received yours ?
- olegp 14y ago
  I received my invite from somebody else using the service.
  - infinitone 14y ago
    Hey, can you invite me please? Thanks!
- ig1 14y ago
  You just need to get an existing user to invite you.
  - vacipr 14y ago
    Is the number of invites limited ? If no,can you please send me one ? I'd rather use this over mibbit on my chromebook. (email in my profile)
    - earnubs 14y ago
      Invite sent.
      - vacipr 14y ago
        Thank You.

endtwist 14y ago

Harvest ( http://getharvest.com http://getharvest.com ) - Time tracking and invoicing for freelance work SendGrid ( http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com ) - API for sending and tracking email Lighthouse ( http://lighthouseapp.com http://lighthouseapp.com ) - Issue tracking for teams Trello ( http://trello.com http://trello.com ) - Task tracking, lists Stripe ( http://stripe.com http://stripe.com ) - Fast, easy payment processing BundleScout ( http://bundlescout.com http://bundlescout.com ) - Third-party library update tracking (shameless plug, but I use BundleScout at BundleScout)

joeblau 14y ago
Why did you go with stripe over braintree?
potomak 14y ago
Tomatoes (http://tomato.es http://tomato.es) - Time tracker and pomodoro timer

smadam9 14y ago

Graylog2 (http://graylog2.org/ http://graylog2.org/) - Log management & analytics in browser Torch (for hosted Graylog https://www.torch.sh/ https://www.torch.sh/)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

philippeback 14y ago

hipchat - IM parse.com - API integration symbaloo.com - entry points collection teamviewer - screen share

bfirsh 14y ago

Here are a few that we use. Airbrake (http://airbrake.io/ http://airbrake.io/) - Exception logging. Campfire (http://campfirenow.com/ http://campfirenow.com/) - Chat. Librato (https://metrics.librato.com/ https://metrics.librato.com/) - Hosted graphing. Mixpanel (http://mixpanel.com/ http://mixpanel.com/) - Analytics, people tracking. Pagerduty (http://www.pagerduty.com/ http://www.pagerduty.com/) - Monitoring alerts. Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com/ http://sendgrid.com/) - Sending emails. Sprintly (https://sprint.ly/ https://sprint.ly/) - Project management. Tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com/ http://www.tarsnap.com/) - Offsite backups. As well as all the obvious ones - GitHub, Google Apps, Dropbox, etc.

borski 14y ago

Hipchat (http://hipchat.com http://hipchat.com) - team collaboration Stripe (http://stripe.com http://stripe.com) - payments Mandrill (http://mandrill.com http://mandrill.com) - email Tinfoil Security (http://tinfoilsecurity.com http://tinfoilsecurity.com) - web security Help Scout (http://helpscout.net http://helpscout.net) - help desk / customer support

camz 14y ago

Stripe ( http://stripe.com http://stripe.com )- Payment processing Sendgrid ( http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com )- Sending emails Autotax ( http://autotax.me http://autotax.me )- Automated 1099 & sales tax filing Trello ( http://trello.com http://trello.com ) - Trask tracking New Relic ( http://newrelic.com http://newrelic.com ) - Server/app monitoring

instakill 14y ago

Airbrake (http://www.airbrake.io http://www.airbrake.io) Jenkins New Relic (http://www.newrelic.com http://www.newrelic.com) Jira (http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/overview)

bearwithclaws 14y ago

I use these for Hacker Monthly (http://hackermonthly.com http://hackermonthly.com): SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com) - transactional emails (sending digital issues to subscribers). MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com http://mailchimp.com) - newsletter. Linode (http://linode.com http://linode.com) - VPS hosting. Harvest (http://getharvest.com http://getharvest.com) - invoicing (for corporate customers + advertisers). FetchApp (http://fetchapp.com http://fetchapp.com) - digital delivery (for single issue purchase). Previously used E-Junkie. PayPal - payment gateway (sadly, one of the only choice for Malaysian). Gumroad (http://gumroad.com http://gumroad.com) - I use this as a 'PayPal alternative' for customers who wish to pay directly with their credit card (and refuse to have anything to do with PayPal). Pivotal Tracker (http://pivotaltracker.com http://pivotaltracker.com) - project management for HM's backend app ODesk (http://odesk.com http://odesk.com) - finding and managing my remote team (currently in the size of 4).

petercooper 14y ago
What sort of things do you have the folks on ODesk doing? Support, editorial..?

spo81rty 14y ago

Hosted TFS Stackify - app ops Twilio sms SendGrid email Chargify - billing software Pusher - web sockets

Flavius 14y ago

Moqups (https://www.moqups.com/ https://www.moqups.com/) - Wireframing tool Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com/ http://sendgrid.com/) - Sending emails Braintree (https://www.braintreepayments.com/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/) - Payments Deployd (http://www.deployd.com/ http://www.deployd.com/) - Quickly design and build APIs Github (https://github.com/ https://github.com/) - Project hosting and issue tracker

gadr90 14y ago
Oh my god, Deployd is incredible! How come it's not in the front HN page forever? Seriously now, this is pratically open source Parse!
- methehack 14y ago
  I agree -- wow! Seems like it also competes with firebase. And it seems like it would also be useful in some cases where you'd otherwise use meteor or derby.

cmadan 14y ago

Here is what we use 1. BitBucket (http://www.bitbucket.org http://www.bitbucket.org) - Source code hosting 2. Google Docs (http://drive.google.com http://drive.google.com) - Team Collaboration 3. BitBucket Issues (http://www.bitbucket.org http://www.bitbucket.org) - Team Collaboration 4. Heroku (http://www.heroku.com http://www.heroku.com) - PaaS/sysadmin replacement 5. Hirefire (http://www.hirefireapp.com http://www.hirefireapp.com) - Scale up/down dynos on Heroku based on traffic 6. Mongolab (http://www.mongolab.com http://www.mongolab.com) - Database-aaS 7. Pusher (http://www.pusherapp.com http://www.pusherapp.com) - WebSockets-aaS 8. Filepicker (http://www.filepicker.io http://www.filepicker.io) - Uploading files to the application 9. Mailgun (http://www.mailgun.com http://www.mailgun.com) - Send & Receive Mails 10. PaperTrail (http://www.papertrail.com http://www.papertrail.com) - Error Logging (Rails) 11. Errorception (http://www.errorception.com http://www.errorception.com) - Error Logging (JS) 12. Desk.com (Knowledge Base + Customer Support)

siddhant 14y ago
PaperTrail URL should be https://papertrailapp.com/ https://papertrailapp.com/ :)

sergiotapia 14y ago

I STRONGLY recommend Asana: http://www.asana.com http://www.asana.com It's like using a smart piece of paper that just gets out of your way and let's you create, assign, toggle, set dates, etc really intuitively. I'm a freelancer - and for my usage I typically have a Workspace called Freelance Projects. In that workspace I have many projects, each for each freelance gig I land. I then invite my client (YOU CAN INVITE UP TO 30 PEOPLE PER PROJECT FOR FREE HOLY BALLS) and collaborate intuitively from there. He/she can upload photoshop files, images, text files, edit desriptions and I can comment on them and we go back and forth. Better than email. I used to procrastinate a lot. It was my achille's heel; but since Asana I enjoy working because there's something deeply psychological in ticking things off and seeing them grayed out.If you haven't checked it out. There's also Trello but I kind of dislike it when there are more than 5 items in a list. It gets unwiedly.

corresation 14y ago
That looks like a fantastic product. You mentioned creating a freelance workspace and then projects for each gig, but don't you invite/share at the workspace level? How do you configure per project permissions to the applicable client?
reddit_clone 14y ago
Very interesting. How is it pronounced? Asana like in Yoga?
- mhartl 14y ago
  The company pronounces it as-AH-nuh rather than AS-uh-nuh.
- c_t_montgomery 14y ago
  Yep
mars 14y ago
dude, your shift key is broken. you might wanna get a new keyboard.

preinheimer 14y ago

Where's it Up - http://wheresitup.com/ http://wheresitup.com/ (Global ping/dns/traceroute tools)

todsul 14y ago

Vero (http://getvero.com http://getvero.com) - email A/B testing & re-marketing Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) - task/project/team management Stripe (http://stripe.com http://stripe.com) - credit card payment processing Helpscout (http://helpscout.net http://helpscout.net) - email support system Plus the usual suspects: AWS, GitHub, Mailgun...

rschmitty 14y ago

I still find the Atlassian OnDemand suite to be the most complete thing for teams after we out grew BaseCamp/GitHub: http://www.atlassian.com/software/ondemand/overview/ http://www.atlassian.com/software/ondemand/overview/ BitBucket: just like github (git, wiki, issues, pull requests etc) only priced that makes sense for private repos. We just use it for git however because... JIRA: Way better issues/bugs/feature tickets, built in optional time tracking. Good support for Agile teams with GreenHopper Confluence: A real wiki Bamboo: continuous integration/deployment. When you commit to git with a JIRA ticket number and a build fails its easier for everyone (non-technical people) to see what is causing the failed build The other big plus is user management to all of the above, you can create client accounts if needed and they can create/close tickets or work on wiki with you. HipChat is nice because your non technical people participate easier, irc previously had just been developers You can probably get all of these things free individually but its worth the small $ to have them all work together seamlessly, plus 1 account vs many is always a big plus for adoption -------------- SplunkStorm: https://www.splunkstorm.com/ https://www.splunkstorm.com/ log practically anything server related and put it into dashboards/timelines. Alerts in the works

garrettdimon 14y ago

I've been assembling a list of these lately for a book that I'm working on. (http://startingandsustaining.com http://startingandsustaining.com) Some of the categories are fairly loose as some apps don't fit nicely into categorical buckets, but hopefully this is a helpful list. --Browser/Email Testing BrowserStack (http://www.browserstack.com http://www.browserstack.com) Litmus (http://litmus.com http://litmus.com) --Bug/Issue Tracking BugHerd (http://bugherd.com http://bugherd.com) Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com http://lighthouseapp.com) Sifter (http://sifterapp.com http://sifterapp.com) (Disclaimer: I built this.) --Planning & Project Management Sprintly (http://sprint.ly http://sprint.ly) Podio (https://podio.com https://podio.com) Flow (http://www.getflow.com http://www.getflow.com) Interstate (http://interstateapp.com http://interstateapp.com) Basecamp (http://basecamp.com http://basecamp.com) Apollo (http://www.apollohq.com http://www.apollohq.com) Pivotal (http://www.pivotaltracker.com http://www.pivotaltracker.com) Asana (http://www.asana.com http://www.asana.com) Trello (https://trello.com https://trello.com) Blossom (https://www.blossom.io https://www.blossom.io) Trajectory (https://www.apptrajectory.com https://www.apptrajectory.com) --Business & Traffic Analytics KissMetrics (http://kissmetrics.com http://kissmetrics.com) MixPanel (http://mixpanel.com http://mixpanel.com) DigMyData (http://digmydata.com http://digmydata.com) --Continuous Integration / Code Quality Travis (https://travis-ci.org https://travis-ci.org) Circle (http://circleci.com http://circleci.com) CodeClimate (http://codeclimate.com http://codeclimate.com) Sempaphore (https://semaphoreapp.com https://semaphoreapp.com) --Dashboards Ducksboard (http://ducksboard.com http://ducksboard.com) Geckoboard (http://www.geckoboard.com http://www.geckoboard.com) Instrumental (https://instrumentalapp.com https://instrumentalapp.com) --Error/Exception Handling Sentry (https://getsentry.com https://getsentry.com) Coalmine (https://www.getcoalmine.com https://www.getcoalmine.com) HoneyBadger (https://www.honeybadger.io https://www.honeybadger.io) BugSnag (https://bugsnag.com https://bugsnag.com) Raygun (http://raygun.io http://raygun.io) --Log Monitoring Loggly (http://loggly.com http://loggly.com) Papertrail (https://papertrailapp.com https://papertrailapp.com) LogEntries (https://logentries.com https://logentries.com) --Billing & Payment Processing Braintree (https://www.braintreepayments.com https://www.braintreepayments.com) Stripe (http://stripe.com http://stripe.com) Pin (http://pin.net.au http://pin.net.au) PayMill (http://paymill.com http://paymill.com) Recurly (http://recurly.com http://recurly.com) Chargify (http://chargify.com http://chargify.com) Spreedly (http://spreedly.com http://spreedly.com) Spreedly Core (https://core.spreedly.com https://core.spreedly.com) --Support/Help Desks Desk (http://desk.com http://desk.com) HelpScout (http://helpscout.net http://helpscout.net) ZenDesk (http://zendesk.com http://zendesk.com) Groove (http://groovehq.com http://groovehq.com) Intercom (http://intercom.io http://intercom.io) Tender (http://tenderapp.com http://tenderapp.com) --Transactional Email Postmark (https://postmarkapp.com https://postmarkapp.com) Mandril (http://mandrill.com http://mandrill.com) MailGun (http://www.mailgun.com http://www.mailgun.com) SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com) CloudSMTP (http://www.cloudsmtp.com http://www.cloudsmtp.com) CritSend (http://www.critsend.com http://www.critsend.com) Postage (http://postageapp.com http://postageapp.com) --Email Collection/Landing Page Apps Launchrock (http://launchrock.com http://launchrock.com) Unbounce (http://unbounce.com http://unbounce.com) KickoffLabs (http://www.kickofflabs.com http://www.kickofflabs.com) Launch Effect (http://launcheffectapp.com http://launcheffectapp.com) Prefinery (https://www.prefinery.com https://www.prefinery.com) LaunchGator (http://launch.deskgator.com http://launch.deskgator.com)

veesahni 14y ago

Trello ( http://trello.com http://trello.com ) - task tracking Clicky ( http://clicky.com http://clicky.com ) - lightweight visitor analytics Pingdom ( http://pingdom.com http://pingdom.com ) - monitoring AWS ( http://aws.amazon.com http://aws.amazon.com ) - infrastructure Stripe ( http://stripe.com http://stripe.com ) - payments Mailgun ( http://mailgun.com http://mailgun.com ) - transactional email Postmark ( http://postmarkapp.com http://postmarkapp.com ) - more transactional email Mailchimp ( http://mailchimp.com http://mailchimp.com ) - non-transactional email SupportFu ( http://www.supportfu.com http://www.supportfu.com ) - lightweight customer service

pkrefta 14y ago

OT - Maybe should we also add native apps ?

sharjeel 14y ago
I think you can get a lot of information from UsesThis (http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/)

n9com 14y ago

1. JIRA (Issue Tracking) 2. BitBucket (Source code hosting) 3. Desk (Customer Support) 4. MailChimp (Newsletter / Email marketing) 5. ServInt (Web hosting)

fideloper 14y ago
I'm glad to see ServInt on your list - we've happily used them for something like 7 years. Awesome host.

olegp 14y ago

I'm actually working on a web app directory as part of https://starthq.com https://starthq.com - sign up to receive a reminder when it launches next week.

mgkimsal 14y ago

Browser testing: http://saucelabs.com http://saucelabs.com

Johnyma22 14y ago

Travis (http://travis-ci.org http://travis-ci.org) Github Bitbucket Etherpad (http://etherpad.org http://etherpad.org)

Johnyma22 14y ago

Travis (http://travis-ci.org http://travis-ci.org) Github Bitbucket Etherpad (http://etherpad.org http://etherpad.org)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

alexmic 14y ago

These are tools (not just SaaS services) I've used in the past as part of a team or on my own projects. ------------- Collaboration ------------- 1. Yammer (https://www.yammer.com/ https://www.yammer.com/) 2. Basecamp (http://basecamp.com http://basecamp.com) 3. Limechat for IRC client (http://limechat.net/mac/ http://limechat.net/mac/) 4. Flowdock (http://flowdock.com http://flowdock.com) 5. Asana (http://asana.com http://asana.com) 6. Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) ---------- Deployment ---------- 1. Chef (http://www.opscode.com/chef/ http://www.opscode.com/chef/) 2. Fabric (http://fabfile.org http://fabfile.org) ---------- CI ---------- 1. Jenkins (http://jenkins-ci.org http://jenkins-ci.org) ----- Email ----- 1. Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com http://sendgrid.com) 2. AWS SES (http://aws.amazon.com/ses/ http://aws.amazon.com/ses/) 3. Gmail (http://gmail.com http://gmail.com) 4. MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com http://mailchimp.com) 5. Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/) 6. Fractal (https://www.getfractal.com/ https://www.getfractal.com/) -------------------- Monitoring & Logging -------------------- 1. Graylog2 (http://graylog2.org/ http://graylog2.org/) 2. Statsd (https://github.com/etsy/statsd/ https://github.com/etsy/statsd/) 3. Graphite (http://graphite.wikidot.com/ http://graphite.wikidot.com/) 4. Geckoboard (http://www.geckoboard.com/ http://www.geckoboard.com/) 5. PaperTrail (https://papertrailapp.com/ https://papertrailapp.com/) 6. Pingdom (https://www.pingdom.com/ https://www.pingdom.com/) --------- Analytics --------- 1. Mixpanel (http://mixpanel.com http://mixpanel.com) 2. Segment.io (http://segment.io http://segment.io) 3. Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/ http://www.google.com/analytics/) -------------- Issue Tracking -------------- 1. Github Issues (http://github.com http://github.com) 2. Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com/ http://lighthouseapp.com/) ------ Others ------ 1. Silverback (http://silverbackapp.com/ http://silverbackapp.com/) 2. Wufoo (http://www.wufoo.com/ http://www.wufoo.com/)

sgt 14y ago

It certainly seems that these startups have the potential of jointly keeping themselves alive.

jonsherrard 14y ago

The only to-do list you'll ever need: http://workflowy.com http://workflowy.com

llimllib 14y ago

The only ones my company uses that haven't yet been mentioned are Google Hangout and GoToMeeting. We use both because Hangouts have given us issues on some networks. Also, our chatbot is critical to the way we work and lives on hipchat (but has adapters for campfire and jabber): https://github.com/markolson/linkbot https://github.com/markolson/linkbot

jbobes 14y ago

Cloudiff Server monitoring / Cloud management http://cloudiff.com/demo http://cloudiff.com/demo

halis 14y ago

For invoicing and time trackingI would humbly submit my own startup: halis (http://halis.io http://halis.io)

smagch 14y ago

Why no one mentioned about Zapier? https://zapier.com/ https://zapier.com/

spo81rty 14y ago
We use Zapier at Stackify and love it. 2 thumbs up
variousbagels 14y ago
How is this different/better than https://ifttt.com https://ifttt.com ?
bryanh 14y ago
Thanks for the mention! :-)

josscrowcroft 14y ago

[Plug:] Open Exchange Rates (https://openexchangerates.org https://openexchangerates.org) – free or very cheap currency conversion data JSON API. Built by a developer for other developers. :o)

jtheory 14y ago
This is useful - how are most places using it? I'd suggest making a drop-in script or two something like the extensions Stripe has been adding on a bit at a time, to make it easy to use this for in-page on-the-fly currency conversion... That is, select your currency from the dropdown, and all prices elsewhere on the page will display in the local currency selected.

disclosure 14y ago

Accept Bitcoin as payment: http://www.weusecoins.com/ http://www.weusecoins.com/

philjackson 14y ago

It's mine but hopefully ApiAxle is useful to API developers: http://apiaxle.com http://apiaxle.com

8ig8 14y ago

FreshBooks (http://www.freshbooks.com http://www.freshbooks.com) is fantastic for invoicing. That's the primary reason we use it, but it also tracks time, expenses and is moving towards a full accounting offering.

pwman 14y ago

https://LastPass.com https://LastPass.com http://Gotomeeting.com http://Gotomeeting.com http://Drive.google.com http://Drive.google.com

damon_c 14y ago

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned WePay for payment processing. Their api is excellent and they fill some specific needs that I haven't seen addressed anywhere else.

sidcool 14y ago

I am impressed with how frequently Asana, Trello and Stripe have featured there.

seldo 14y ago

This is our current list; I'm ignoring ones we've stopped using or haven't really started using properly yet. Github - obviously AWS - obviously Ylastic - easier AWS management Sendgrid - mail delivery Stripe - payment processing Pingdom - external uptime tracking PagerDuty - ops alerting and scheduling Xero - accounting JIRA - task management (the hosted version at Atlassian) Desk - support tickets Crashplan - personal machine backups Google Docs/Mail - everything else Others have been mentioning Fabric, Puppet, Graphite, Nagios -- we use these but they're not hosted services, so not sure they fit.

guelo 14y ago
I don't think Github is an "obviously" unless you have an open source project. It's really not that hard to set up a git ssh server
- simonw 14y ago
  The GitHub web interface is SO much better than running your own repository. Pull requests are awesome for code reviews, the code browsing interface is best of breed, and if you use their issue tracker and/or wiki everything links together fantastically well.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    The GitHub web interface is SO much better than running your own repository. And all you have to do is trust probably your second most valuable asset to an external service outside your organisation... What could possibly go wrong?
    - gatherknwldg 14y ago
      Your cash is a valuable asset to your startup, too, but people don't store that in-house. Who do you trust more, github or Wall Street?
      - deleted 14y ago

bconway 14y ago

Already some pretty extensive lists here, but no mention yet of LeanKit: http://leankit.com/ http://leankit.com/ I've found it to be excellent.

wslh 14y ago

I wonder why nobody is talking about OTRS: http://www.otrs.com http://www.otrs.com as an excellent ticketing system.

nanch 14y ago

I made http://tarbackup.com http://tarbackup.com for encrypted off-site backups using existing open-source tools. I hope it will make it to your list of "recommended services" by the end of 2013.

lucidquiet 14y ago

There's also this newer Planning and Project Management tool, that was just released: https://zingproject.com/ https://zingproject.com/ -- not the best name but none ever are. The interesting thing about this is that it's built around a streaming so that you can see everyone else's edits as they occur.

minhajuddin 14y ago

Timelogger (https://github.com/minhajuddin/timelogger https://github.com/minhajuddin/timelogger). A command line tool which allows you to maintain a log of your time spent on various activities/projects/tasks, with decent reporting.

halayli 14y ago

http://webmon.com http://webmon.com external website & network monitoring

Bharath1234 14y ago

--Helpdesk Freshdesk (http://www.freshdesk.com http://www.freshdesk.com)

asenna 14y ago

I was just doing some research on this recently and found this amazing article by Vccafe - http://www.vccafe.com/startup-resources/ http://www.vccafe.com/startup-resources/ The links are all in the article.

JangoSteve 14y ago

Because you specifically are asking about "services", this is may be slightly off-topic, but I'd be interested in seeing a thread about open-source alternatives as well. When we were first starting out, we used a lot of these services and they were absolutely instrumental to get us going, allowing us to focus on what mattered at the time. But the more we developed our rhythm and workflow, the more we started constantly running up against small idiosyncrasies with each service that we were powerless to fix (we always submitted feedback, sometimes they'd implement our idea, sometimes they wouldn't). Maybe this app had an awesome interface, but their status labels were odd given the usual workflow. Maybe this other app was perfect in every way but had no API to allow us to tie it into the rest of our process. Anyway, we started switching from services to open-source products, which really allowed us to take our process to the next level and optimize everything specifically for our flow. For example (italics are open-source): --------------------- Project Management: Email => Basecamp => Pivotal => Redmine (and tried Asana but went back to Redmine) --------------------- Issue Tracking: Email => Github Issues => Redmine --------------------- Continuous Integration: CruiseControl => Integrity => TDDium (https://www.tddium.com https://www.tddium.com) / Semaphore (https://semaphoreapp.com https://semaphoreapp.com) --------------------- Error/Exception Tracking: ExceptionNotifier => Airbrake => Errbit --------------------- Time Tracking & Invoicing: Harvest => Cashboard (http://www.cashboardapp.com http://www.cashboardapp.com) --------------------- Group Chat: Campfire => [currently looking into] Kandan --------------------- Code Collaboration: Self-hosted SVN => Unfuddle => Github --------------------- Design Collaboration: Pixelapse => ConceptShare --------------------- You'll notice the only non-open-source services we still use are Github, Cashboard, TDDium/Semaphore, and ConceptShare. For the open-source services, we're able to host most of them on Heroku and rarely ever have to worry about maintaining them, other than security patches and whatnot. And we've been able to do some pretty cool things internally as far as connecting the different apps, since we have control over the APIs and underlying code, allowing us to add and change as needed. You'll also notice that for CI, we actually went in the opposite direction from open-source to service-based. I have an entire writeup (not yet published) on why I actually found CI to work best for us as a 3rd-party service.

casca 14y ago
Any reason you chose RedMine over ChiliProject (https://www.chiliproject.org/ https://www.chiliproject.org/)? Also, I'd support any effort to collate good self-hosted options for startups.

jasonhanley 14y ago

I've found that http://www.bestvendor.com/ http://www.bestvendor.com/ and http://alternativeto.net/ http://alternativeto.net/ are nice sites to figure out tool stacks. BestVendor even lets you put together your own customized lists: http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/tool-stack-for-pmrobot-a-mobile-optimized-project-management-web-app http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/tool-stack-for-pmrobot-a-mob...

amac 14y ago

AWS Google Apps Google Analytics Blogger MailChimp Drupal Desk Facebook Twitter GitHub Worldpay

csomar 14y ago

I'm not sure about the current trends, but here is my list for 2012-2013 - Github (http://github.com http://github.com) for Open Source and private source code control. - Bitbucket (http://bitbucket.org http://bitbucket.org) mostly private source code management. - Linode (http://linode.com http://linode.com) Where I run my virtual servers. - Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) Manages all my projects - Basecamp (http://basecamp.com http://basecamp.com) some clients still use it. - Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics http://google.com/analytics) Sticking with Google. - Freshbooks (http://freshbooks.com http://freshbooks.com) For invoicing matters. - ahref (http://ahrefs.com http://ahrefs.com) Tracking my backlinks. - Skype (http://skype.com http://skype.com) P2P calls and VoIP. - Google App (http://google.com/a http://google.com/a) Planning to move this year, still on the free plan. - Gmail (http://gmail.com http://gmail.com) still no plans to move yet!

dalacv 14y ago

is there anything in here that is a landing page builder + recurring payment collection?

St-Clock 14y ago

In terms of SaaS, we use: github (code review is the killer feature) campfire jira + greenhopper (no killer feature :-( ) notableapp (so-so interactions with our designers) balsamiq (quick & easy mockups) crashplan (easy and cross-platform backups) google apps google analytics (we have a crazy setup) I am currently looking into splunkstorm for our log analysis. We are using monit and mmonit (on premise) for alterting and monitoring. For my open source projects, I use: github travis-ci sourceforge (for the mailing list. any suggestions for alternatives?)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

vccafe 14y ago

Vendorstack created an info graphic of the top startups for startups tools, I spiced it a bit more and posted a super tools list on VC Cafe link: http://www.vccafe.com/2013/01/24/startups-startups-top-b2b-tools-startups/ http://www.vccafe.com/2013/01/24/startups-startups-top-b2b-t...

amarsahinovic 14y ago

http://piwik.org/ http://piwik.org/ Open source alternative to Google Analytics

DanielRibeiro 14y ago

Steven Blank seems to be keeping a pretty nice list up to date: http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/

sblank 14y ago
Updated http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ to include link to this page and most of these tools

reledi 14y ago

I have a gist that I update frequently https://gist.github.com/dideler/1718200 https://gist.github.com/dideler/1718200. It needs some cleaning up though.

karanbhangui 14y ago

Surprised no one has mentioned Vagrant [1]. By far the best addition to my tool-set this year. [1] http://www.vagrantup.com/ http://www.vagrantup.com/

somlor 14y ago

Paydirt (https://paydirtapp.com https://paydirtapp.com) - Time tracking and invoicing. SerpBook (http://serpbook.com http://serpbook.com) - Search engine rank tracker. Mortar (http://mortardata.com http://mortardata.com) - Hadoop-aaS.

rafadhs 14y ago

I assembled my 150+ lists list at www.tuneyourstartup.com Will add the ones suggested here. Thanks for sharing, everyone.

rafadhs 14y ago
Ops. Here is the link: http://www.tuneyourstartup.com http://www.tuneyourstartup.com Let me know what you guys think. And please add tools if you can´t find that one you love.

snambi 14y ago

Nice list

trendspotter 14y ago

Before I found this overview and your comments here today, I started two other similar overviews. One on Quora and the other on Bestvendor. Here they are: http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-are-some-notable-startups-for-startups http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-are-some-notable-startups... http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/startup-tools-for-startups http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/startup-tools-for-startups Here is a copy of my older post on Quora, please take a look at my newer BestVendor list (see link above) as well: - SETUP http://www.getdash.com/ http://www.getdash.com/ (currently down or pivot) - Claim your brand name claim.io Trademarkia - Workspace and office space Loosecubes LiquidSpace 42Floors - MANAGEMENT - Business Analytics Geckoboard Chartio - Cloud Aggregation and Unified Activity Streams Hojoki Flowdock Zapier Otixo Cloudbot Refinder dispatch.io busyflow.com 300.mg cloudsnap.com manybots.com tractionstream.com clutchapp.com jaconda.im - Business Intelligence GoodData - Contractor Management oDesk Elance - Communication Yammer Salesforce Chatter Socialcast - Coordination, Collaboration Zoho Podio Asana Trello Basecamp Huddle Planbox Teambox Dropbox - Resource-Planning Erply - Human Resources (HR) Workday (software) - Social CRM NimbleCRM capsulecrm.com Batchbook - Cloud integration SnapLogic - Expenses Expensify - Invoicing Tradeshift FreshBooks - Time Tracking getharvest.com toggl.com - Customer Support Assistly Zendesk Olark SnapEngage - Feedback UserVoice Get Satisfaction Intercom - Content Management Acquia (Drupal) - Wiki MindTouch - BACKEND Cloud Hosting Heroku Engine Yard - Database Cloudera - Virtualization Skytap - Storage Pure Storage - Mobile Backend Urban Airship Parse - WebSockets Pusher - Cloud Telephony, SMS Twilio Tropo - Payments, Billing Stripe Recurly Zuora Spreedly Chargify - Code repository GitHub Beanstalk - API Management Mashery Apigee - DEVELOPMENT iOS Testing TestFlight - Issue Tracking Pivotal Tracker Sifter lighthouseapp - Monitoring New Relic Airbrake (iOS Bug tracking) Crittercism (iOS Bug tracking) - DESIGN Mockups/Wireframes/Workflows Balsamiq InVisionApp Mockingbird Axure RP Mockflow OmniGraffle Mockup Builder HotGloo - MARKETING - Email MailChimp SendGrid Mailjet - Social Media Buddy Media Sprout Social - Beta Invite / Landing Page Management LaunchRock Prefinery KickoffLabs - Pre-Launch UsabilityHub - Video Vimeo Ooyala - Analytics Chartbeat Mixpanel Optimizely App Annie Distimo - Infographics Visual.ly

leadsrain 14y ago

LeadsRain (http://leadsrain.com http://leadsrain.com)

ataleb52 14y ago

There is far too much awesomeness on this thread...thank you for asking this question!

yonasb 14y ago

Awesome post. I've listed out my "Cloudstack" on Leanstack at http://alpha.leanstack.io/users/yonasb http://alpha.leanstack.io/users/yonasb. Just launched the alpha would love some feedback from you guys, just ping me at yonas@leanstack.io if you're interested or sign up on the site. Thanks!

shirkey 14y ago

Passpack (http://www.passpack.com http://www.passpack.com) for centralized password sharing among remote team members. Previously using Keepass, which is great but difficult to sync. Yes, passwords in the cloud -- I never thought I'd do it either.

tomdidom 14y ago

Tom's Planner http://www.tomsplanner.com http://www.tomsplanner.com for the Planning & Project Management category

thoughtcriminal 14y ago

Jumping in to make one recommendation: Hitsniffer, real-time analytics: http://hitsniffer.com http://hitsniffer.com I've used them for several years now and they are awesome.

codemoran 14y ago

What we use at graphdat. Source code: http://www.github.com http://www.github.com We could host our own server, but github is really convenient and our SDKs are open source so its easier. Workflow & Issues: http://huboard.com/ http://huboard.com/ Given we use github, huboard makes it easy to mange the issues Build: http://jenkins-ci.org/ http://jenkins-ci.org/ and https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano Such a nice setup, we host our own jenkins server, I have seen some links above to Travis, might give that a spin. Tickets & Wiki: http://www.uservoice.com http://www.uservoice.com Its a love/hate relationship with uservoice. They make some things easy, others are so arcane. I'm adding in a wiki article right now with some images in it. But uservoice doesn't let you host an image, so I put it into an S3 bucket, add the link to uservoice and there is a security error. I go back to the bucket, reset the security settings and uservoice is caching the image error and wont let me add the images, so I need to edit the source. So hard for something so simple. Team Communication: https://www.flowdock.com/ https://www.flowdock.com/ We were using Campfire, but we like flowdock much better. Threaded conversations are still tough, I actually miss Google Wave. We had 1 wave a day, it starts to grow on you. Log Aggregation: http://graylog2.org/ http://graylog2.org/ Very cool once you get it all working together Server Metrics and Application Analytics: http://www.graphdat.com http://www.graphdat.com We dog food our own product, so it's our servers on the homepage.. Some other notable candidates: 'your personal website': http://backstit.ch/ http://backstit.ch/ handy to monitor a couple of feeds 'tech news aggregator': http://skimfeed.com/ http://skimfeed.com/ nice way to skim some news

jwarzech 14y ago
Awesome to hear that your using backstitch! (I'm one of the Co-Founders). If you get a chance I would love to talk with you about how your using it and what you would like to see from the service. Please feel free to ping me at jordan [AT] backstit.ch

delirious 14y ago

This list was pretty helpful. http://www.meetup.com/SF-Growth-Hackers/pages/Growth_Hacking_Tools/ http://www.meetup.com/SF-Growth-Hackers/pages/Growth_Hacking... The SF growth hackers talk about the tools a lot in their meetup if anyone is interested in learning more about them.

bradezone 14y ago

Pagoda Box: https://pagodabox.com/ https://pagodabox.com/ A Heroku-esque deployment app specially tuned to PHP apps. Full of useful options. I love it.

maximveksler 14y ago

Excellent post. Y HN CAN HAZ NO BOOKMARKs?