Startup - Stack recommendations

Tools for startups

https://startuptoolchain.com/

• Idea validation
• Startup coaching
• Team building
• Equity
• Incorporation
• Legal
• Software development
• Cloud
• Container
• Website
• Analytics
• Monitoring
• Design
• Audio
• Publishing
• Management
• Remote work
• Email
• Well-being
• Pricing
• Payments
• Operations
• Data science
• 3D printing
• Manufacturing
• Marketing
• Promotion
• Finance
• Investment

Domain registrar

https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/domain-registrars-which-developers-recommend/

Essential tools

• DNS
• Email
• Messaging
• File sharing
• Documentation / wiki

https://koptional.com/article/software-start-up-system-essentials

Surveys and forms

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/s/GpZ7DK9TOg

• Tally.so

Podscan.fm - Arvid Kahl, solopreneur, built in public

Tech Stack (Development & Infrastructure)

Framework & Language

• PHP
• Laravel

Laravel Ecosystem Tools

• Laravel Forge (server provisioning & management)
• Laravel Envoyer (zero-downtime deployment)
• Laravel Spark (SaaS billing & subscriptions)
• Laravel Jetstream (authentication & user management)

Database

• MySQL (primary database)
• Considered:
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQLite

Search

• Meilisearch
• Considered alternatives:
  • Typesense
  • Algolia

Hosting

• AWS (Amazon Web Services)

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Business Services

Scraping

• ScrapingBee

Error Tracking

• Sentry
• Flare (Laravel/PHP-centric)

Email

• Postmark (initially)
• Resend (currently for transactional emails)
• Kit (formerly ConvertKit – for marketing emails)

Payments

• Paddle

Employment

• Remote.com

Business Setup & Banking

• Alt Space (company formation, bookkeeping, tax)
• Mercury (banking, partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust)

Backend and backoffice

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29531700

These recommendations have an emphasis on being open source but with paid options and low code:

• Supabase: backend as a service

• n8n: workflow automation

• AppSmith: back-office apps

• Sentry: error monitoring

• Openreply: session monitoring

• Posthog: product anaylitics

• Plausible: website anaylitics

• Metabase: data analytics https://www.metabase.com/learn/getting-started/tour-of-metabase

I don’t have any front end recommendations, but I lean towards react and buying a theme/template.

For hosting, skip the k8s and use Render or Heroku.