The Many Services that Run TinyPilot
Indie Hackers - July 1, 2021
Michael Lynch (@deliberatecoder)
Shopify
eCommerce platform ($29/mo + $10/mo add-ons)
Shopify
- Pros
- Easy to use
- Inexpensive
- Reliable
Shopify
- Cons
- Expects to manage your entire operation (website, inventory, CRM)
- Relies on third-party apps for core features (creating invoices, offering subscriptions)
- Third-party apps get way too much data
Notion
Knowledge base ($10/mo/person, $40/mo total)
Notion
Notion
- Pros
- Pretty user-friendly (modulo some footguns)
- Better as a knowledge base than Google Docs
- Searchable
Notion
- Cons
- Lots of UI gotchas
- Workflow forces you to frequently bounce between keyboard and mouse
Reviewable
Code reviews ($39/month)
Reviewable
- Pros
- One of the few tools that supports for multi-round reviews
- Clean integration with Github
Reviewable
- Cons
- Requires broad user permissions
- Web app is flaky
- Confusing for developers coming from Github code reviews
- No feature development for years
TalkYard
Customer support forum ($38/month*)
* on a pay-what-you want basis
TalkYard
TalkYard
- Pros
- Good UI
- Privacy-friendly
- Markdown-friendly
- Extremely affordable pricing
- Personalized customer service directly from the founder
- Open-source
TalkYard
- Cons
- Slow feature development
CodeTree
Bug prioritization ($24/month)
CodeTree
- Pros
- Shows aggregate view of bugs from different Github repos
CodeTree
- Cons
- Difficult to navigate
- Confusing pricing (an organization counts as a user?)
- Poor customer support
- No feature development
TopicBox
Internal mailing lists ($20/month)
TopicBox
- Pros
- Clean UI
- Simple interface
TopicBox
- Cons
- Using a custom domain requires manual intervention from support
- Limited administrative controls
LogPaste
Diagnostic log sharing ($6/month self-hosted)
LogPaste
LogPaste
- Pros
- I built it
- Open-source
- Simple for customers to use
- Inexpensive to run
LogPaste
- Cons
- No new features unless I add them
- No admin dashboard
BitWarden
Secure secret sharing ($12/month)
BitWarden
- Pros
- Open-source
- Independent reimplementations of server exist
- Supports many platforms and browsers
BitWarden
- Cons
- Lots of confusing UI paths
- Browser integration is only okay
JustWorks
HR-as-a-service
JustWorks
- Pros
- Payroll has been smooth
- Handle legal requirements
JustWorks
- Cons
- Hidden fees
- No way for employees to request reimbursement
- Tight turnaround on payroll approval
- Poor customer support
- Ask for same information over and over
Sentry
Error monitoring (sales site)
Cronhub
Service monitoring
Stripe
- Pros
- Nice UI
- Easy subscription button
Stripe
- Cons
- Terrible for eCommerce
- Dev integrations are super complicated
eBay
Sales channel
EmailOctopus
Public mailing list
Tailscale
- VPN ($0/month)
Beancount
- Bookkeeping ($0/month)
Beancount
- Pros
- Free
- More power than any SaaS bookkeeping apps
- Doesn’t fund the parasite that is Intuit
Beancount
- Cons
- Steep learning curve
- You have to self-host it
Google Cloud Platform
Web hosting
Mercury
Business checking
Chase
Business credit card
Chase
- Pros
- They gave me a credit card
- Decent bank
Chase
- Cons
- $3k credit limit (my monthly expenses are sometimes up to $30k)
- Poor customer support
- They keep sending me weird paper statements
PayPal
- Payment processing (via Shopify) (2.9-4.4% per transaction)
PayPal
- Pros
- Customers like it
PayPal
- Cons
- Withhold money sometimes due to investigations
- Tedious to move money back to checking
Stripe
Subscription management
Google Docs / Sheets
- Inventory tracking
- Design documents
Github
Source hosting (main development)
Microsoft VSTS
Source hosting (distribution)