Cian's Tool List

60 items

  • Ably

    SaaS

    Managed realtime messaging when I do not want to operate WebSocket scaling myself. Ideal for medium to large products.

    Realtime
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  • Airtable

    SaaS

    Spreadsheet-plus-database for lightweight CRMs, content calendars, and ops tables without building admin UI.

    Projects & tasksDatabase
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  • Axiom

    SaaS

    Developer-friendly log search and dashboards. Ideal for SQL-like queries without running my own stack. I haven't used it yet.

    Monitoring & errors
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  • Better Stack

    SaaS

    Uptime, logs, incidents, and status pages in one hosted stack. Looks promising, but I haven't used it yet.

    Monitoring & errors
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  • better-auth

    Self-host

    Self-hosted auth solution for teams that want full control over their auth system. Ideal for teams that need to build their own auth system from scratch.

    Auth
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  • Blender

    Free desktop app

    Full 3D pipeline in one free app. Supports Mac, Windows, and Linux.

    3D creationMotion & animationVideo editing
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  • Canva

    SaaS

    Fast social graphics when fidelity matters less than speed. Not for deep UI work, great for quick assets.

    UI / UX
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  • Cavalry

    Free desktop app

    Procedural 2D motion tool, free for individuals after Canva acquired it. I'm interested in it but haven't used it yet.

    Motion & animation
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  • ChatGPT

    SaaS

    Most popular AI tool, with abundant learning resources online. Free tier is available. Suitable for beginners. Can choose between Claude and ChatGPT.

    Chat bot
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  • Chatwoot

    Self-host

    Open-source Intercom/Zendesk alternative. Self-host when support data should stay on my infra.

    Customer support
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  • CivitAI

    SaaS

    Community models for Stable Diffusion and Flux. Most checkpoints I use in ComfyUI come from here. You can also find tips, tools, and settings from professional content creators here.

    Image generation
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  • Claude

    SaaS

    Developer-friendly AI writing and development tool. Free tier is available. Available on Desktop, Mobile, and CLI for all platforms. Recommended to upgrade to paid version.

    Chat bot
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  • Claude Code

    SaaS

    Anthropic’s agentic coding tool in the terminal.

    Coding agent
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  • Clerk

    SaaS

    Drop-in auth UI for Next.js with OAuth, orgs, and billing hooks. Saves weeks on login flows. Ideal for teams that need to authenticate users quickly. Easy to use and integrate.

    Auth
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  • ClickUp

    SaaS

    Everything-in-one workspace when the team prefers one hub over Notion + Asana + Slack.

    Projects & tasks
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  • Cloudflare

    SaaS

    Free tier is absurdly useful. R2 for cheap object storage, Tunnel for exposing local services, Workers for edge APIs.

    CDN & object storageServers & deploy
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  • Codex

    SaaS

    OpenAI’s coding agent.

    Coding agent
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  • ComfyUI

    Self-host

    Node-based image workflows with full control. Ideal for professional content creators. Recommended to use the Cloud version for beginners. Consider self-hosting for heavy usage or running on RunPod.

    Image generation
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  • Cursor

    SaaS

    My main editor. Cursor's Auto and Composer models are great. You can use the latest models from major providers, or even connect your local models.

    Coding agent
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  • DaVinci Resolve

    Free desktop app

    Edit, grade, and finish video in one app. Free tier is genuinely usable; color is the standout.

    Video editing
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  • Dify

    Self-host

    A visual AI agent builder — the top choice for small teams self-hosting AI agents. Teams that prioritize data security should evaluate its use carefully before adopting it.

    Automation & jobs
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  • Discord

    SaaS

    Low-cost community home for early users and open-source projects. Rich bots, voice, and free hosting. Ideal for communities and open-source projects. Free tier is generous enough for most needs.

    CommunityTeam communication
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  • Electron

    SaaS

    Ship Desktop Apps with web tech. Ideal for products that need a Mac/Windows client.

    Desktop apps
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  • ElevenLabs

    SaaS

    The best AI voice tool. Natural text-to-speech with real-time voice cloning. Ideal for products that need voice output or voice cloning.

    Voice processing
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  • Excalidraw

    Self-host

    Hand-drawn diagrams for architecture chats. The sketch look keeps discussions loose, not final-design.

    Diagrams & whiteboard
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  • Expo

    SaaS

    React Native toolchain with OTA updates. Ideal for teams that need to develop for iOS and Android together.

    Mobile apps
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  • Figma

    SaaS

    Shared language between design and engineering. Wireframes, UI, prototypes, and Dev Mode in one bookmark.

    UI / UX
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  • Framer

    SaaS

    Designer-led marketing sites with motion. When the page should feel designed, not templated.

    Sites & landing pagesUI / UX
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  • Gemini

    SaaS

    Google’s general-purpose chat AI. Free tier is available. Integrated into Google ecosystem. Although not as smart as other models, it has the advantage of ecosystem integration, and I still pay for it.

    Chat bot
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  • GitHub

    SaaS

    Default for code hosting, PRs, and CI hooks. The bookmark I open ten times a day. Ideal for open-source projects. Free static site hosting. Many people use it to deploy product websites, blogs, etc.

    Git & CI/CD
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  • GitLab

    Self-host

    Self-hostable Git platform alternative to GitHub. Ideal for teams that need to self-host Git repositories. Full DevSecOps platform with deep CI/CD.

    Git & CI/CDAutomation & jobs
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  • Grafana

    Self-host

    Unified dashboards for metrics, logs, and traces. Cloud free tier or full self-host when I need custom observability.

    Monitoring & errors
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  • Groq

    SaaS

    Extremely fast inference API, ideal for low-latency AI API calls.

    Model APIs & platforms
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  • Hugging Face

    SaaS

    Where I start when I need an open model, dataset, or a quick Space demo.

    Model APIs & platforms
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  • Kit

    SaaS

    Creator-focused newsletter and automation. Not transactional email; this is for audience nurture. Formerly known as ConvertKit.

    Newsletter & marketing
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  • Lemon Squeezy

    SaaS

    MoR with a gentler onboarding than Paddle. Ideal for indie developers and small products.

    Payments
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  • Linear

    SaaS

    Fast issue tracking tool. Ideal for teams that need to track tasks quickly. Lightweight and modern.

    Projects & tasks
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  • Mailgun

    SaaS

    Mature deliverability tooling when volume is high and inbox placement really matters. Ideal for medium to large products.

    Transactional email
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  • Mailjet

    SaaS

    Transactional plus marketing email in one platform when dev and marketing share one contact list. Ideal for small-scale products.

    Transactional emailNewsletter & marketing
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  • Midjourney

    SaaS

    The most popular AI image generation tool. Ideal for playing with AI image generation.

    Image generation
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  • Miro

    SaaS

    Team whiteboard for workshops, user journeys, and sticky-note brainstorming. My default when collaboration needs more structure than a sketch.

    Diagrams & whiteboard
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  • n8n

    Self-host

    Open automation tool. Ideal for teams that need to automate processes but don't want to write code. Open source with a hosted option.

    Automation & jobs
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  • Neon

    SaaS

    Serverless Postgres with database branches. Flexible scaling and free tier. Ideal for side projects.

    Database
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  • OpenRouter

    SaaS

    One API key for many models. Free tier is available for some models. Ideal for developers who want to experiment with multiple models.

    Model APIs & platforms
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  • Paddle

    SaaS

    Merchant of Record solution for products. Ideal for indie developers and small products. MoR products handle global tax for you.

    Payments
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  • Perplexity

    SaaS

    AI search engine with citations. Useful for fact-checking and researching when creating AI agents.

    Chat botDeep Research
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  • Railway

    SaaS

    No free tier, but want the flexibility of self-hosting, but don't want to deal with the complexity of using AWS, GCP, etc. Suitable for small-scale production.

    Servers & deployDatabaseAutomation & jobs
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  • React Email

    Self-host

    Build email templates in React components. Pairs well with Resend when I want code-first templates. Ideal for code-first email needs.

    Transactional email
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  • Resend

    SaaS

    Transactional email API with great DX. Ideal for sending transactional emails, signup emails, reset password emails, receipt emails, etc.

    Transactional email
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  • Rive

    SaaS

    Interactive animations with state machines for product UI, not just linear motion graphics.

    Motion & animation
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  • RunPod

    SaaS

    Rent GPUs when you can't buy them. Ideal for projects that need a lot of GPUs but can't find them.

    Servers & deploy
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  • Sentry

    Self-host

    Default error tracking bookmark. Catches exceptions with almost zero setup; self-host exists if compliance requires it.

    Monitoring & errors
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  • Slack

    SaaS

    The most popular team communication tool. Ideal for teams that need channel-based communication.

    Team communication
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  • Squarespace

    SaaS

    Polished sites for non-developers and small brands when custom code is not the goal.

    Sites & landing pages
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  • Stripe

    SaaS

    Best payment solution for products. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Taiwan by default. Although there are many tutorials online, it's still very complicated to set up.

    Payments
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  • Supabase

    Self-host

    Open-source Firebase alternative on Postgres. Free tier is available for cloud services. Can quickly deploy database, authentication, real-time communication, and other features.

    App backendDatabaseAuthRealtime
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  • Trigger.dev

    Self-host

    Scheduled and queue tasks tool. Free tier available. Easy to use and self-hostable.

    Automation & jobs
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  • Vercel

    SaaS

    Free tier is enough for side projects and small-scale production. Easy to deploy and scale.

    Servers & deployCDN & object storage
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  • Zeabur

    SaaS

    Taiwan-built deploy platform with one-click templates for n8n, Dify, and other tools when I want self-hosting without infra pain. Easy to deploy and scale.

    Servers & deployAutomation & jobs
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  • Zendesk

    SaaS

    Enterprise-grade support when the team needs SLAs, routing, and a full ticket ops stack.

    Customer support
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