These are my personal preferences from experience.
If you want to do some or all of the things I do — or you need me or my good friends to help you — this is what we use and know…
Operating Systems
In order of experience:
*Free (as-in freedom) Open Source Software (FOSS)[1]
Software & Services
In approximate order of usage and recommendation:
Communications
- Discord (preferred chat app, private & secure)
- GitLab (preferred project & code management app)
- Cloudron (Email & CRM €30 credit with code
d28ae00540f92a76) - Thunderbird
- Zero Bounce (email validation)
- Elastic Email (bulk emailing for less)
- Mailerlite (more contacts for less cost)
- Napoleon Cat (social media everything)
- Rocket.Chat (website live chat & support)
- Brandlight CMS* (private, secure & encrypted)
- Apple Messages & FaceTime (private, secure & encrypted)
- Telegram (private, secure & encrypted)
- Signal* (private, secure & encrypted)
Productivity
- WebCatalog (for all frequently used websites & webapps)
- Ulysses (for Markdown notes and used to publish this page)
- iA Writer, Scrivener (for longer articles and creative writing)
- Apple Notes, Reminders, Calendar & Siri
- Google Apps (almost all of them)
- LibreOffice* (documents & spreadsheets)
- Nextcloud* (file storage)
- JumpDesktop (remote desktops & servers)
- Guacamole* (remote desktops & servers through a web browser)
- Alfred (search & navigating shortcuts)
- Short Menu (url shortening shortcuts for shorties)
Security
- Enpass (password manager & two-factor authentication)
- Bitwarden* (password manager & two-factor authentication)
- PrivateBin* (secure messaging across insecure platforms)
- Authy (two-factor authentication)
- Cryptomator* (secure files on insecure storage)
- Strongbox* (secure files on insecure storage)
Accounts
- Quickfile (accounts - recommended for UK & GBP freelancers)
- Xero (accounts - recommended for UK & international companies)
- Quickbooks (accounts - recommended for US companies & freelancers)
- Odoo* (accounts and other webapps - recommended for integrated operations)
- Microsoft Dynamics NAV (accounts & logistics)
- Google Sheets (accounts & analysis)
- Brandlight ERP* (ecommerce)
- Stannp (print mailing)
Design
- Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign & Acrobat (design)
- Shutterstock (imagery)
- Zazzle (branding)
- Sketch (interfaces)
- Affinity Designer (image processing)
Development
- GitLab* & GitHub (code & project management)
- Wordpress* & WooCommerce* – PHP* & MySQL* (default website stack)
- Ghost (recommended personal blog, publishing and membership platform)
- Atom* & GitHub Desktop* (coding and deployment)
- Apple Terminal, iTerm, Oh My Zsh (sometimes command lines are just quicker)
- Integromat (API integrations)
- Google GSuite (identity and services management)
- Microsoft Dynamics (resource planning & data processing)
- Orbis TaskCentre (integrations)
- Sequel Pro (database design & analysis)
- Transmit (file storage & sharing)
- Mountain Duck (file storage & sharing)
- Odoo* – Python* & PostgreSQL* (alternative website stack)
- Electron (webapps)
Hosting
- Hetzner (website & webapp hosting, including network-level DDoS protection — €20 sign-up credit link)
- Scaleway (website & webapp hosting, including network-level DDoS protection and affordable – Kubernetes)
- Contabo (website & webapp hosting, including network-level DDoS protection)
- Vultr (website & webapp hosting — $100 sign-up credit)
- Upcloud (website & webapp hosting — $100 sign-up credit)
- Digital Ocean (website & webapp hosting, including managed Kubernetes – $100 sign-up credit)
- Microsoft Azure (websites & databases)
- Google Cloud Platform (translation & data-processing (AI))
- Amazon AWS (when alternatives in the above don’t exist)
- GitLab* & GitHub (code & project management)
- Cloudron (€30 credit with code
d28ae00540f92a76) - Backblaze B2 (file storage and backups — efficient alternative to Amazon S3)
- Wasabi (file storage — efficient alternative to Amazon S3)
- ODrive (file storage sync for popular providers)
- Digital Press (Ghost* hosting)
- Updown (website status & speed monitoring)
- Tab Digital (Nextcloud*) (file storage & sharing)
- Google Drive (file storage & sharing)
- Dropbox (file storage & sharing)
- Sync.com (file storage & sharing)
- SparkleShare* (git-based file storage & sharing)
- Paperspace (remote desktop clients)
- iRedMail* (email servers)
- Runcloud
- Rancher
- Grafana
- Prometheus
Marketing
- Brandlight Ecommerce*
- Elastic Email (bulk emailing for less)
- Mailerlite (more contacts for less cost)
- Mautic (outbound multi-channel marketing)
- Stripo (email designer)
- BEE Free (email designer)
- Napoleon Cat (social media everything)
- Google Ads
- Microsoft Ads
- Google Merchant Centre
- Google Manufacturer Centre
- Amazon Marketplace
- Ebay Marketplace
Analysis & Reporting
- Wordpress* & MySQL* with MariaDB*
- Matomo*
- Redash*
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Google Sheets
- Microsoft Dynamics NAV & MSSQL
Domains & Network Management
- Namesilo (lowest priced service I know, collaborative admin sharing, solid API, doesn't support .co.uk domains yet for some reason)
- Namecheap (good if you need collaborative assistance too)
- Ionos 1&1 (covers some other domain extensions)
- 101 Domain (every international domain extension imaginable
- Dot TK (free domains, in-part to promote awareness of the island of Tokelau)
- Freenom (free & cost-price domains)
- Marcaria (international domains and other international trademark registration and trust services others don’t cover)
- Sedo (domain resale marketplace)
- Cloudflare (hosting direction & security, good if you need collaborative assistance too)
- DNS Made Easy (fastest DNS service)
- DNSimple (fastest managed DNS service)
- BuddyNS (backup DNS)
- Amazon AWS Route53 (alternative DNS)
- DNSPerf (DNS performance & service comparison)
- DNSFilter (DNS-level user protection)
- BunnyCDN (fast and affordable Content Delivery Network for speeding up website access to audiences around the world)
- X4B (firewall as a service for hosts that don’t have that)
- Sercurius (test your website & web app for security best-practice)
Payment Processing
- Paypal (default)
- Stripe (most integrations)
- Adyen (international)
- Citypay (alternative default)
- Bitpay (Bitcoin)
- Coinpayments (more cryptocurrencies)
Banking
- Transferwise (multi-currency-banking for lower exchange-rate costs)
- Monzo (multi-currency payments to save on exchange costs)
- Blockchain Exchange (the cheapest & safest way I know to buy Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies)
Music & Audio
Video
Utilities
- WebCatalog*
- Choosy
- Smooze (faster scroll-wheel scrolling)
- Backblaze (unlimited backups)
News
Federated Publishing
- PeerTube* (FOSS alternative to YouTube)
- Mastodon* (FOSS alternative to Twitter)
- Diaspora* (FOSS alternative to Facebook)
- Pixelfed* (FOSS alternative to Instagram)
- Textile Photos* (FOSS alternative to iCloud)
- NextCloud* (FOSS alternative to Office, Google Apps, DropBox &c)
- Write Freely (FOSS version of Write.as alternative to Medium)
Free (as-in freedom) Open-Source Software (FOSS) – is an ethical way to provide software services for; transparency, security, freedom, privacy, data-ownership, collaboration, developer credit & promotion – and simply good online citizen karma in return for the countless community projects you already benefit from that form the foundations a free and inclusive internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software ↩︎
To follow my online adventures, with advice on creative technology, building a brand, ethical business, ecommerce and online security, find me on Twitter...