by sharjeel on 2/17/13, 1:35 PM with 159 comments
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?
by cmadan on 2/17/13, 2:43 PM
1. BitBucket (http://www.bitbucket.org) - Source code hosting
2. Google Docs (http://drive.google.com) - Team Collaboration
3. BitBucket Issues (http://www.bitbucket.org) - Team Collaboration
4. Heroku (http://www.heroku.com) - PaaS/sysadmin replacement
5. Hirefire (http://www.hirefireapp.com) - Scale up/down dynos on Heroku based on traffic
6. Mongolab (http://www.mongolab.com) - Database-aaS
7. Pusher (http://www.pusherapp.com) - WebSockets-aaS
8. Filepicker (http://www.filepicker.io) - Uploading files to the application
9. Mailgun (http://www.mailgun.com) - Send & Receive Mails
10. PaperTrail (http://www.papertrail.com) - Error Logging (Rails)
11. Errorception (http://www.errorception.com) - Error Logging (JS)
12. Desk.com (Knowledge Base + Customer Support)
by sergiotapia on 2/17/13, 2:43 PM
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.
by bearwithclaws on 2/17/13, 2:31 PM
SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com) - transactional emails (sending digital issues to subscribers).
MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com) - newsletter.
Linode (http://linode.com) - VPS hosting.
Harvest (http://getharvest.com) - invoicing (for corporate customers + advertisers).
FetchApp (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) - 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) - project management for HM's backend app
ODesk (http://odesk.com) - finding and managing my remote team (currently in the size of 4).
by bfirsh on 2/17/13, 2:24 PM
Airbrake (http://airbrake.io/) - Exception logging.
Campfire (http://campfirenow.com/) - Chat.
Librato (https://metrics.librato.com/) - Hosted graphing.
Mixpanel (http://mixpanel.com/) - Analytics, people tracking.
Pagerduty (http://www.pagerduty.com/) - Monitoring alerts.
Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com/) - Sending emails.
Sprintly (https://sprint.ly/) - Project management.
Tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com/) - Offsite backups.
As well as all the obvious ones - GitHub, Google Apps, Dropbox, etc.
by rschmitty on 2/17/13, 2:45 PM
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/ log practically anything server related and put it into dashboards/timelines. Alerts in the works
by endtwist on 2/17/13, 2:09 PM
SendGrid ( http://sendgrid.com ) - API for sending and tracking email
Lighthouse ( http://lighthouseapp.com ) - Issue tracking for teams
Trello ( http://trello.com ) - Task tracking, lists
Stripe ( http://stripe.com ) - Fast, easy payment processing
BundleScout ( http://bundlescout.com ) - Third-party library update tracking (shameless plug, but I use BundleScout at BundleScout)
by garrettdimon on 2/17/13, 2:46 PM
--Browser/Email Testing
BrowserStack (http://www.browserstack.com)
Litmus (http://litmus.com)
--Bug/Issue Tracking
BugHerd (http://bugherd.com)
Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com)
Sifter (http://sifterapp.com) (Disclaimer: I built this.)
--Planning & Project Management
Sprintly (http://sprint.ly)
Podio (https://podio.com)
Flow (http://www.getflow.com)
Interstate (http://interstateapp.com)
Basecamp (http://basecamp.com)
Apollo (http://www.apollohq.com)
Pivotal (http://www.pivotaltracker.com)
Asana (http://www.asana.com)
Trello (https://trello.com)
Blossom (https://www.blossom.io)
Trajectory (https://www.apptrajectory.com)
--Business & Traffic Analytics
KissMetrics (http://kissmetrics.com)
MixPanel (http://mixpanel.com)
DigMyData (http://digmydata.com)
--Continuous Integration / Code Quality
Travis (https://travis-ci.org)
Circle (http://circleci.com)
CodeClimate (http://codeclimate.com)
Sempaphore (https://semaphoreapp.com)
--Dashboards
Ducksboard (http://ducksboard.com)
Geckoboard (http://www.geckoboard.com)
Instrumental (https://instrumentalapp.com)
--Error/Exception Handling
Sentry (https://getsentry.com)
Coalmine (https://www.getcoalmine.com)
HoneyBadger (https://www.honeybadger.io)
BugSnag (https://bugsnag.com)
Raygun (http://raygun.io)
--Log Monitoring
Loggly (http://loggly.com)
Papertrail (https://papertrailapp.com)
LogEntries (https://logentries.com)
--Billing & Payment Processing
Braintree (https://www.braintreepayments.com)
Stripe (http://stripe.com)
Pin (http://pin.net.au)
PayMill (http://paymill.com)
Recurly (http://recurly.com)
Chargify (http://chargify.com)
Spreedly (http://spreedly.com)
Spreedly Core (https://core.spreedly.com)
--Support/Help Desks
Desk (http://desk.com)
HelpScout (http://helpscout.net)
ZenDesk (http://zendesk.com)
Groove (http://groovehq.com)
Intercom (http://intercom.io)
Tender (http://tenderapp.com)
--Transactional Email
Postmark (https://postmarkapp.com)
Mandril (http://mandrill.com)
MailGun (http://www.mailgun.com)
SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com)
CloudSMTP (http://www.cloudsmtp.com)
CritSend (http://www.critsend.com)
Postage (http://postageapp.com)
--Email Collection/Landing Page Apps
Launchrock (http://launchrock.com)
Unbounce (http://unbounce.com)
KickoffLabs (http://www.kickofflabs.com)
Launch Effect (http://launcheffectapp.com)
Prefinery (https://www.prefinery.com)
LaunchGator (http://launch.deskgator.com)
by seldo on 2/17/13, 4:54 PM
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.
by Flavius on 2/17/13, 2:37 PM
Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com/) - Sending emails
Braintree (https://www.braintreepayments.com/) - Payments
Deployd (http://www.deployd.com/) - Quickly design and build APIs
Github (https://github.com/) - Project hosting and issue tracker
by codemoran on 2/20/13, 1:21 AM
Source code: 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/ Given we use github, huboard makes it easy to mange the issues
Build: http://jenkins-ci.org/ and 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 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/ 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/ Very cool once you get it all working together
Server Metrics and Application Analytics: 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/ handy to monitor a couple of feeds
'tech news aggregator': http://skimfeed.com/ nice way to skim some news
by smadam9 on 2/17/13, 2:10 PM
Torch (for hosted Graylog https://www.torch.sh/)
by jasonhanley on 2/17/13, 6:30 PM
BestVendor even lets you put together your own customized lists: http://www.bestvendor.com/lists/tool-stack-for-pmrobot-a-mob...
by borski on 2/17/13, 2:25 PM
Stripe (http://stripe.com) - payments
Mandrill (http://mandrill.com) - email
Tinfoil Security (http://tinfoilsecurity.com) - web security
Help Scout (http://helpscout.net) - help desk / customer support
by csomar on 2/17/13, 8:02 PM
- Github (http://github.com) for Open Source and private source code control.
- Bitbucket (http://bitbucket.org) mostly private source code management.
- Linode (http://linode.com) Where I run my virtual servers.
- Trello (http://trello.com) Manages all my projects
- Basecamp (http://basecamp.com) some clients still use it.
- Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics) Sticking with Google.
- Freshbooks (http://freshbooks.com) For invoicing matters.
- ahref (http://ahrefs.com) Tracking my backlinks.
- Skype (http://skype.com) P2P calls and VoIP.
- Google App (http://google.com/a) Planning to move this year, still on the free plan.
- Gmail (http://gmail.com) still no plans to move yet!
by asenna on 2/17/13, 5:51 PM
The links are all in the article.
by llimllib on 2/17/13, 3:36 PM
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
by veesahni on 2/17/13, 2:47 PM
Clicky ( http://clicky.com ) - lightweight visitor analytics
Pingdom ( http://pingdom.com ) - monitoring
AWS ( http://aws.amazon.com ) - infrastructure
Stripe ( http://stripe.com ) - payments
Mailgun ( http://mailgun.com ) - transactional email
Postmark ( http://postmarkapp.com ) - more transactional email
Mailchimp ( http://mailchimp.com ) - non-transactional email
SupportFu ( http://www.supportfu.com ) - lightweight customer service
by 8ig8 on 2/17/13, 4:30 PM
by smagch on 2/17/13, 3:44 PM
by DanielRibeiro on 2/18/13, 12:52 AM
by vccafe on 2/17/13, 11:20 PM
by minhajuddin on 2/17/13, 5:38 PM
by sgt on 2/17/13, 3:29 PM
by St-Clock on 2/17/13, 8:46 PM
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)
For my open source projects, I use:
github
travis-ci
sourceforge (for the mailing list. any suggestions for alternatives?)by pwman on 2/17/13, 4:37 PM
by Johnyma22 on 2/17/13, 3:15 PM
by camz on 2/17/13, 2:27 PM
Sendgrid ( http://sendgrid.com )- Sending emails
Autotax ( http://autotax.me )- Automated 1099 & sales tax filing
Trello ( http://trello.com ) - Trask tracking
New Relic ( http://newrelic.com ) - Server/app monitoring
by JangoSteve on 2/17/13, 6:10 PM
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) / Semaphore (https://semaphoreapp.com)
---------------------
Error/Exception Tracking:
ExceptionNotifier => Airbrake => Errbit
---------------------
Time Tracking & Invoicing:
Harvest => Cashboard (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.
by karanbhangui on 2/18/13, 1:32 AM
by todsul on 2/17/13, 2:43 PM
Trello (http://trello.com) - task/project/team management
Stripe (http://stripe.com) - credit card payment processing
Helpscout (http://helpscout.net) - email support system
Plus the usual suspects: AWS, GitHub, Mailgun...
by olegp on 2/17/13, 1:58 PM
clicky.com - real time analytics
irccloud.com - IRC in the browser
sendgrid.com - API for sending e-mail
by philjackson on 2/17/13, 3:57 PM
by lucidquiet on 2/17/13, 5:35 PM
by yonasb on 2/19/13, 11:02 AM
by disclosure on 2/17/13, 3:56 PM
by amarsahinovic on 2/18/13, 12:32 AM
by jonsherrard on 2/17/13, 3:30 PM
by somlor on 2/18/13, 2:55 PM
SerpBook (http://serpbook.com) - Search engine rank tracker.
Mortar (http://mortardata.com) - Hadoop-aaS.
by shirkey on 2/19/13, 8:45 AM
by Bharath1234 on 2/17/13, 5:49 PM
by delirious on 2/25/13, 12:20 AM
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.
by instakill on 2/17/13, 2:28 PM
by nanch on 2/17/13, 5:34 PM
I hope it will make it to your list of "recommended services" by the end of 2013.
by josscrowcroft on 2/17/13, 3:45 PM
Open Exchange Rates (https://openexchangerates.org) – free or very cheap currency conversion data JSON API. Built by a developer for other developers. :o)
by alexmic on 2/17/13, 3:26 PM
-------------
Collaboration
-------------
1. Yammer (https://www.yammer.com/)
2. Basecamp (http://basecamp.com)
3. Limechat for IRC client (http://limechat.net/mac/)
4. Flowdock (http://flowdock.com)
5. Asana (http://asana.com)
6. Trello (http://trello.com)
----------
Deployment
----------
1. Chef (http://www.opscode.com/chef/)
2. Fabric (http://fabfile.org)
----------
CI
----------
1. Jenkins (http://jenkins-ci.org)
-----
-----
1. Sendgrid (http://sendgrid.com)
2. AWS SES (http://aws.amazon.com/ses/)
3. Gmail (http://gmail.com)
4. MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com)
5. Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/)
6. Fractal (https://www.getfractal.com/)
--------------------
Monitoring & Logging
--------------------
1. Graylog2 (http://graylog2.org/)
2. Statsd (https://github.com/etsy/statsd/)
3. Graphite (http://graphite.wikidot.com/)
4. Geckoboard (http://www.geckoboard.com/)
5. PaperTrail (https://papertrailapp.com/)
6. Pingdom (https://www.pingdom.com/)
---------
Analytics
---------
1. Mixpanel (http://mixpanel.com)
2. Segment.io (http://segment.io)
3. Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/)
--------------
Issue Tracking
--------------
1. Github Issues (http://github.com)
2. Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com/)
------
Others
------
1. Silverback (http://silverbackapp.com/)
2. Wufoo (http://www.wufoo.com/)
by olegp on 2/17/13, 2:50 PM
by reledi on 2/18/13, 1:01 AM
by sharjeel on 2/17/13, 1:48 PM
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
by damon_c on 2/17/13, 4:45 PM
by stevecash on 3/2/13, 11:41 PM
by bradezone on 2/25/13, 2:52 PM
A Heroku-esque deployment app specially tuned to PHP apps. Full of useful options. I love it.
by n9com on 2/17/13, 2:49 PM
by bconway on 2/17/13, 5:01 PM
I've found it to be excellent.
by tomdidom on 2/19/13, 3:40 PM
by wslh on 2/17/13, 5:33 PM
by philippeback on 2/17/13, 2:20 PM
parse.com - API integration
symbaloo.com - entry points collection
teamviewer - screen share
by preinheimer on 2/17/13, 2:43 PM
by rafadhs on 2/18/13, 3:14 PM
by pkrefta on 2/17/13, 2:48 PM
by halayli on 2/17/13, 5:42 PM
by jbobes on 2/17/13, 3:37 PM
by spo81rty on 2/17/13, 2:34 PM
by mgkimsal on 2/17/13, 3:06 PM
by ataleb52 on 2/19/13, 12:52 AM
by leadsrain on 2/18/13, 10:51 PM
by sidcool on 2/17/13, 4:54 PM
by maximveksler on 2/26/13, 12:17 AM
by dalacv on 2/17/13, 8:21 PM
by trendspotter on 2/18/13, 9:55 PM
http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-are-some-notable-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/ (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
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
by snambi on 2/18/13, 4:01 PM
by amac on 2/17/13, 7:50 PM
Google Apps
Google Analytics
Blogger
MailChimp
Drupal
Desk
GitHub
Worldpay
by thoughtcriminal on 2/19/13, 8:32 PM
I've used them for several years now and they are awesome.