How we pick tools

Forty-five tools made this list. A few hundred didn't. That ratio is the whole product, so it's worth explaining the bar.

A tool gets in when it removes a job, not when it adds a feature. A solo shipper doesn't have a platform team, a design team, or a finance person. The tools that matter are the ones that quietly play one of those roles. Superwall is a paywall team. PostHog is an analytics team. That's the test.

The rules we actually use

• It has to survive the second week. Anything that's exciting for two days and then becomes a chore gets cut. We wait before adding.
• Pricing has to make sense at zero revenue. A generous free tier or a one-time price beats a "contact us" button every time.
• It has to work alone. If a tool assumes a team — approval flows, seats, admin consoles — it's built for someone else.
• We have to use it. Nothing gets in from a launch video. If it's on the list, it carried a real project at least one stage forward.

What keeps a tool on the list

Staying is harder than getting in. Tools get removed when they pivot to enterprise, bury the plan that made them great, or get acquired into stagnation. The list is alive — that's the point of it.

If you think we missed something, the bar above is the pitch format: tell us what job it removed for you.