Essential tools for the indie developer

Developing alone means choosing tools well: each one should save time and cost without locking you into unnecessary vendor lock-in.

Hosting and infrastructure

• Vercel / Netlify: front-end and serverless deploy with a few clicks, great for Next.js and React.
• Railway / Render: apps with backend, database and workers without managing a server.
• Supabase / Firebase: backend-as-a-service with auth, database and storage, ideal for a fast MVP.

Start with what has a generous free tier; scale when revenue justifies it.

Payments

• Stripe: standard for subscriptions and one-time payments. Excellent documentation and support for multiple countries.
• Paddle: alternative that acts as merchant of record and handles taxes in many countries.

To get started, Stripe is usually the most straightforward option for developers.

Analytics and feedback

• Plausible / Fathom: lightweight, privacy-focused analytics.
• PostHog: analytics and session recording to understand how people use the product.
• Crisp / Intercom: chat and support to talk to users directly on the site.

You don’t need everything on day one: start with basic analytics and a contact channel.

Productivity

• Notion / Coda: documentation, roadmap and tasks in one place.
• Linear: issue and sprint management if you prefer a leaner flow than Jira.

What matters is having a single place for “what to do” and “what’s done”, so you don’t lose focus.

Conclusion

The right mix of hosting, payments and support tools lets you focus on code and users, not on configuring servers or manual billing. Adjust the stack as the product and traffic grow.