The job comes first
We start from what the business needs to happen, then find the tool. Never the other way round.
Resources
A field guide to the tools behind the work.
Design, websites, automation and AI move quickly, and the tools a business picks shape what it can do long after launch. This is our working guide to the software we design, build and connect with: what each tool is, and when it’s the right choice.
375 tools in 15 sections. Point at a name to see what it is, or search for a job, like “video” or “CMS”.
How we choose a tool.
There is rarely one best tool, only the best fit for a team, a budget and a goal. Three questions decide it.
Your team can run it
A tool only earns its place if the people using it every day are comfortable with it after we leave.
Your data stays yours
We check where information goes, who can see it, and how you would take it with you if you moved on.
The guide
Nothing here matches that. Ask us and we’ll tell you what we’d use.
Thinking and writing
AI assistants are now the quickest way to research a market, draft copy or make sense of a long document. They differ less in raw ability than in where they live and what they connect to, so the right one usually depends on the tools a team already uses.
Where we start Claude for writing and long documents, with Perplexity alongside it for research that needs sources.
Claude
Anthropic’s AI assistant, strong at writing, analysis and working through long documents.
Best for drafting, editing and reasoning through complex material.
ChatGPT
OpenAI’s AI assistant, which now also takes on long tasks, writes code and runs always-on agents.
Best for teams that want one assistant for a bit of everything.
Gemini
Google’s AI assistant, built into Gmail, Docs, Drive and Chrome.
Best for teams that work in Google Workspace.
Grok
xAI’s AI assistant, with live search across X and the web.
Best for real-time news and what people are saying right now.
Meta AI
Meta’s AI assistant, built into WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.
Best for quick help inside Meta’s apps.
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft’s AI assistant, one app for home and work, built into Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams.
Best for businesses that run on Microsoft 365.
Perplexity
An AI search engine that answers with links to its sources.
Best for research where you need to check where each fact came from.
Gemini Notebook
Google’s research notebook, formerly NotebookLM, which answers only from the documents you give it and can turn them into audio and video overviews.
Best for getting to grips with a stack of reports, policies or transcripts.
Mistral Vibe
The AI assistant and work agent from Mistral, a French AI company, formerly called Le Chat.
Best for European organisations with strict rules on where data is kept.
Granola
An AI notepad that writes up meetings from your own device, with no bot joining the call, and shares notes across a team.
Best for clear notes from calls without an extra attendee.
Fireflies
An AI meeting recorder that transcribes and summarises calls.
Best for a searchable record of every meeting.
DeepSeek Open weights
A Chinese AI assistant with openly released models, strong at reasoning.
Best for low-cost models, and teams that want to run a model themselves.
Kimi Open weights
Moonshot AI’s assistant with openly released models, plus a desktop agent that works with your own files.
Best for long documents and automating work on your own computer.
Qwen Open weights
Alibaba’s AI assistant and family of openly released models.
Best for open models a business can host itself.
Siri New
Apple’s assistant, rebuilt this year to understand what’s on screen and act across apps.
Best for iPhone users who want a capable built-in assistant.
Alexa+
Amazon’s generative-AI Alexa, on Echo devices, phones and the web.
Best for households and smart homes.
Grammarly
A writing assistant that checks grammar, tone and clarity wherever you type.
Best for polished writing across a whole team.
Superhuman Go
An AI assistant from Superhuman, the company formerly called Grammarly, that works across your email, documents and apps.
Best for writing- and email-heavy work.
Wispr Flow
Voice dictation that turns speech into clean, punctuated text in any app.
Best for writing and prompting by voice.
Otter.ai
Meeting transcription and notes that build a searchable archive of a team’s conversations.
Best for teams that want every meeting searchable.
Fathom
An AI notetaker that records, transcribes and summarises calls, with a generous free plan.
Best for reliable call summaries at little or no cost.
tl;dv
A meeting recorder whose AI writes follow-ups and updates your CRM after calls.
Best for sales and customer-facing teams.
Read AI
A meeting notetaker that sends recaps and can draft follow-up emails.
Best for teams that spend their days in meetings.
Plaud
Pocket and wearable recorders that transcribe and summarise conversations in person.
Best for in-person meetings and interviews.
Agents that do the work
The biggest change of 2026 is AI that acts instead of answering: agents that work in the background for hours, sign into your tools, fill in forms and come back with finished work. They are capable and still young, so we use them where the task is clear and the result can be checked, and we are careful about how much access they get.
Where we start Claude Cowork or ChatGPT Work for finished documents and research. For anything that touches money or customers, a person still approves the last step.
Dots New
OpenAI’s always-on agents inside ChatGPT, each with its own cloud computer, that keep working on a goal across your connected apps.
Best for ongoing background work such as inbox triage, research and admin.
ChatGPT Work New
A mode in ChatGPT that works for hours across your apps and files to produce finished documents, spreadsheets, decks or web apps.
Best for handing off a whole deliverable.
ChatGPT Space New
A shared workspace where a team and ChatGPT agents build pages, slides and tasks together.
Best for teams collaborating with AI in one place.
Claude Cowork New
Claude’s agent mode, which works through your files and connected tools to produce documents, spreadsheets, decks and scheduled reports.
Best for knowledge work handed off from start to finish.
Muse New US only
Meta’s personal AI agent, which runs long tasks on its own cloud computer: browsing, forms, email, bookings and payments.
Best for everyday digital chores, with a version for small businesses.
Instinct New Invite only
A personal assistant you text or call. It connects to your email, calendar and messages, then books, buys, cancels and replies for you.
Best for hands-off personal admin.
Gemini Spark New
Google’s always-on personal agent, which handles Gmail, Calendar, Docs and recurring tasks in the cloud while your devices are off.
Best for Google Workspace users who want a background assistant.
Grok Bot New Beta
xAI’s always-on agents, each on its own cloud computer, which sign into your tools and finish multi-step jobs.
Best for persistent background work.
Perplexity Computer New
Perplexity’s cloud agent, which splits a goal into subtasks across many AI models and returns finished research, documents or code.
Best for long research and build jobs.
Manus
A general-purpose AI agent that researches, analyses data, builds and carries out tasks on the web.
Best for open-ended research and build tasks.
Genspark
An AI workspace with agents for slides, documents, spreadsheets and email.
Best for all-in-one AI office work.
Poke
An assistant you text over iMessage, SMS or email, which handles planning, your calendar and follow-ups.
Best for an assistant with no new app to install.
OpenClaw Open source
A self-hosted personal agent that connects any AI model to your files and to chat apps such as WhatsApp, and works around the clock.
Best for technical teams that want a private agent they run themselves.
Browsers that browse for you
The browser has become a place where AI works, not just a window you read through. These browsers and extensions can read the page you are on, compare tabs and carry out tasks such as forms and bookings using your own logins. That convenience is also the risk, so they deserve the same care as any tool you hand your passwords to.
Where we start Claude in Chrome or Gemini in Chrome when a team already lives in Chrome; Comet for people who want AI at the centre of their browsing.
Comet Free
Perplexity’s browser, with an assistant built in that summarises pages and carries out tasks across tabs.
Best for AI-first everyday browsing.
Claude in Chrome New
A Chrome extension that lets Claude see the page and click, type, navigate and fill in forms with your existing logins.
Best for browser tasks handed to Claude.
Gemini in Chrome
Google’s assistant in the Chrome sidebar, which can read pages and carry out web tasks such as forms and bookings.
Best for agent help without switching browsers.
ChatGPT for Chrome New
A Chrome extension that lets ChatGPT read the page you’re on, answer questions about it or start a longer task.
Best for ChatGPT users who browse in Chrome.
Dia Mac
A browser from The Browser Company, now part of Atlassian, with an AI assistant in the sidebar and reusable shortcuts.
Best for AI-assisted browsing for work.
Opera Neon
Opera’s agent browser, which organises work into tasks, acts across tabs and can bring in outside agents.
Best for people who want a browser built to act for them.
Design and brand
A brand is a set of decisions about colour, type, imagery and tone, and these tools are where those decisions are made and kept. The important part is the handover: a system your team can apply without us is worth more than a beautiful file nobody opens.
Where we start Figma for identity, interface and design-system work, and Canva for the templates a team edits day to day.
Figma
The shared design tool for interfaces, brands and prototypes.
Best for designing in the open, with clients able to comment in place.
FigJam
Figma’s online whiteboard.
Best for workshops, user flows and early ideas.
Figma Slides
A presentation editor built into Figma.
Best for design-led decks that reuse a brand’s components.
Figma Buzz
A simple Figma editor where marketers make on-brand assets from designers’ templates.
Best for producing brand assets without waiting on a designer.
Figma Sites
Design and publish websites directly from Figma.
Best for simple sites without a separate builder.
Figma Draw
Illustration and vector drawing tools inside Figma.
Best for illustration without leaving the design file.
Adobe Illustrator
The industry-standard vector drawing app.
Best for logos, illustrations and print-ready artwork.
Adobe Photoshop
The industry-standard image editor.
Best for retouching, compositing and preparing photography.
Adobe InDesign
Page layout software for print and long documents.
Best for brand books, brochures and reports.
Affinity Free
Professional design, photo and layout software in one free app from Canva, part of its new ProSuite.
Best for Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign work without a subscription.
Canva
An online design tool built around templates, where you can now also design by describing what you want.
Best for social posts, decks and documents a team updates without a designer.
Adobe Express Free plan
Adobe’s quick design app for social graphics, flyers and short videos from templates.
Best for fast, on-brand marketing assets for non-designers.
Kittl
A browser design tool focused on typography, logos, merchandise and mock-ups.
Best for type-heavy graphics and merchandise.
Sketch
A Mac design app for interfaces and vectors, with a web workspace for sharing.
Best for Mac-based product design teams.
Penpot Open source
An open-source design tool in the spirit of Figma.
Best for organisations that prefer open, self-hosted software.
Relume
Generates sitemaps and wireframes with AI, ready for Figma and Webflow.
Best for agreeing a site’s structure before design starts.
Google Stitch Free
Google’s AI design canvas that turns a description into multi-screen app and web designs.
Best for quick interface concepts and first drafts.
Pomelli Free Experimental
A Google Labs tool that reads a website to capture its brand, then generates on-brand social posts and ads.
Best for small-business marketing content.
Lovart
An AI design agent on an open canvas that turns one brief into posters, brand kits and campaign sets.
Best for rapid concept exploration.
Looka
An AI logo maker that also produces a starter brand kit.
Best for a temporary identity before a proper brand project.
ProtoPie
A prototyping tool for realistic interactions, with sensors, logic and variables.
Best for high-fidelity prototypes for user testing.
Recraft
An AI image generator that can produce vector graphics in a set style.
Best for icon sets and illustrations that stay on-brand.
Tokens Studio
A Figma plugin for design tokens: the named colours, sizes and spacing of a system.
Best for keeping design and code in step.
Storybook Open source
A workshop for building and documenting interface components in code.
Best for a living library of a product’s components.
zeroheight
Publishes design-system guidelines as an easy-to-browse website.
Best for brand and component guidelines the whole team can find.
Frontify
A brand portal for guidelines, assets and templates.
Best for larger organisations with many people producing branded work.
Google Fonts Free
A large library of free, openly licensed typefaces.
Best for good type with no licence fees.
Adobe Fonts
The typeface library included with Adobe Creative Cloud.
Best for licensed type for web and print.
Coolors
A fast colour palette generator.
Best for exploring and sharing colour options.
Khroma Free
An AI colour tool that learns from the colours you like and suggests palettes.
Best for exploring palette directions.
Iconify Open source
One place to search and use hundreds of thousands of open-source icons.
Best for icons in web builds and Figma.
Noun Project
A large library of consistent icons and photos.
Best for icons for decks, signage and brand work.
Flourish
Interactive charts, maps and data stories for the web, now part of Canva.
Best for data visualisation in sites and reports.
Images, video and sound
Generative tools now produce images, footage, voice and music that were out of reach for most budgets a few years ago. They change quickly, so we treat them as instruments rather than suppliers: every result is checked for quality, and for the right to use it commercially.
Where we start Adobe Firefly where commercial safety matters most, Midjourney for art direction, and Descript for editing anything with speech in it.
Midjourney
An AI image generator known for its distinctive, polished look.
Best for moodboards, concepts and art direction.
Adobe Firefly
Adobe’s AI image and video hub: its own models, trained on content Adobe has the rights to use, alongside other companies’ models.
Best for commercial work where licensing matters.
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe’s photo organiser and raw editor, on desktop and mobile.
Best for editing and grading photo shoots in batches.
Procreate
An iPad painting and illustration app, deliberately without generative AI.
Best for hand-made illustration and lettering.
Ideogram
An AI image generator that handles lettering well, now with openly released models.
Best for posters and graphics with words in them.
FLUX
Image models from Black Forest Labs, some released openly, now expanding into video.
Best for high-quality images and custom-trained styles.
GPT Image
OpenAI’s image model, available in ChatGPT.
Best for edits and compositions that follow detailed instructions.
Nano Banana
Google’s image model in Gemini.
Best for quick edits that keep people and products consistent.
Seedream
ByteDance’s image model, which can generate, edit and split images into separate layers.
Best for infographics and layered compositions.
Figma Weave
A node-based canvas, formerly Weavy, that chains AI image, video and 3D models into reusable workflows.
Best for repeatable AI production pipelines.
Leonardo
An AI image and video platform with trainable styles, now part of Canva.
Best for consistent AI imagery inside a Canva workflow.
Krea
An AI image and video studio with real-time generation and agents that chain several models together.
Best for sketching an idea and seeing it rendered as you draw.
Magnific
Freepik’s new name: a stock library with AI image and video generation, and the upscaler it is known for.
Best for stock, generation and taking images up to print and hero sizes in one place.
Topaz Labs
AI tools for upscaling, sharpening and cleaning photos and video, now part of Adobe.
Best for rescuing low-resolution or noisy material.
Photoroom
An AI photo editor built for product images.
Best for clean product shots and consistent backgrounds for online stores.
Runway
An AI video suite with fine control over camera and motion, and an agent that turns a brief into multi-shot videos.
Best for directed shots and transforming existing footage.
Google Veo
Google’s AI video model, which generates sound with the picture.
Best for realistic clips with audio.
Google Flow
Google’s AI film studio, which uses Veo and Google’s image models to build shot-by-shot sequences.
Best for storyboards and AI video shot by shot.
Kling
An AI video model from Kuaishou, known for cinematic motion.
Best for short cinematic sequences.
Seedance Limited regions
ByteDance’s AI video model with sound, available in Dreamina and CapCut.
Best for multi-reference, ad-style clips.
Luma Dream Machine
An AI video generator with keyframe control.
Best for controllable cinematic shots.
Hailuo Open weights
MiniMax’s AI video generator, with sound and openly released models.
Best for quick clips with people in them.
Wan
Alibaba’s AI video model for longer single-shot clips.
Best for longer single shots.
Pika
A playful AI video app that also makes images, music and sound effects.
Best for short social clips.
Higgsfield
A subscription hub that runs many video, image and voice models, with camera-move presets.
Best for social and ad video experiments.
HeyGen
AI presenter videos, with translation into other languages.
Best for explainers and updates in several languages.
Synthesia
AI presenter videos made for business.
Best for training and onboarding videos at scale.
Descript
Edit video and audio by editing the transcript.
Best for interviews, podcasts and case-study videos.
DaVinci Resolve
Professional editing and colour grading, with a capable free version.
Best for films and showreels that need finishing.
Final Cut Pro
Apple’s professional video editor, now also in the Creator Studio subscription.
Best for Mac-based editing.
Apple Creator Studio
A subscription bundling Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro and Motion for Mac and iPad.
Best for Mac studios that want an alternative to Adobe.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe’s video editor.
Best for editing alongside the rest of Creative Cloud.
CapCut
A quick video editor with AI captions and effects.
Best for fast edits for social media.
Opus Clip
Turns long videos into short clips automatically, and now makes complete short videos from a prompt or script.
Best for getting social clips out of webinars and talks.
Frame.io
Video review with comments pinned to the exact frame.
Best for collecting precise feedback on edits.
ElevenLabs
AI voices for narration, dubbing and voice agents, now with licensed music generation.
Best for natural voiceovers in many languages.
Suno Paid plans for commercial use
An AI song generator with a music workstation in the browser, now on label-licensed models.
Best for demos, jingles and temporary tracks.
Stable Audio Open weights
Stability AI’s music and sound-effect generator, trained on licensed audio.
Best for royalty-safe music beds and self-hosting.
Epidemic Sound
A subscription library of licensed music and sound effects.
Best for music that can be used safely in client videos.
Artlist
A royalty-free library of music, sound effects and footage, with AI generation tools.
Best for soundtracks and b-roll for video.
Adobe Podcast
AI audio clean-up that makes rough recordings sound clear.
Best for voice recorded outside a studio.
Motion and 3D
Movement is often what makes a site feel considered: a transition that shows where you went, a product you can turn in your hand. Good motion is quiet and quick, and it respects visitors who prefer less of it.
Where we start Rive for interactive animation, Spline for 3D, and GSAP when the motion lives in code.
Rive
Interactive vector animation with built-in logic.
Best for animated interfaces, icons and logos that respond to the visitor.
Spline
A 3D design tool that publishes straight to the web.
Best for interactive 3D scenes without heavy engineering.
Spline Hana New
Spline’s 2D and 3D interactive design canvas for interfaces, sites and effects.
Best for interactive web graphics.
Figma Motion Beta
Timeline animation inside Figma, exporting to CSS, React and video.
Best for interface and product motion.
LottieFiles
Lightweight animations saved as small files, with a large library to start from.
Best for simple animated illustrations on sites and apps.
Jitter
A simple motion design tool for interfaces.
Best for product animations and animated social posts.
Adobe After Effects
Adobe’s motion graphics app.
Best for polished motion pieces and showreels.
Cavalry
A procedural 2D animation app, now part of Canva, with its Pro features free for individuals.
Best for data-driven and generative motion.
Blender Open source
Free 3D modelling, animation and rendering.
Best for product renders and 3D artwork.
Cinema 4D
Professional 3D software popular in motion design.
Best for high-end 3D motion.
Procreate Dreams
An iPad app for frame-by-frame and timeline animation.
Best for hand-drawn animation.
Meshy
Turns text or images into textured 3D models.
Best for 3D mock-ups and props.
Tripo
Fast text- and image-to-3D with clean geometry and automatic rigging.
Best for quick 3D drafts.
Unicorn Studio
A no-code tool for WebGL effects on websites.
Best for shader-style effects without writing shaders.
GSAP Free
A JavaScript animation library, now free for everyone.
Best for precise scroll and timeline animation.
Three.js Open source
The most widely used library for 3D in the browser.
Best for custom 3D and WebGL experiences.
Motion Open source
An animation library for React and JavaScript, formerly Framer Motion.
Best for smooth interface transitions.
Assets and inspiration
Good references make better briefs, and good assets save days. We keep a short list of libraries for licensed photography, footage and templates, and a longer one of places to look when a project needs a fresh eye. Licences differ widely, so we check them before anything goes into client work.
Where we start Unsplash and Envato for everyday assets, Getty Images when only premium editorial will do, and Cosmos for shared moodboards.
Unsplash Free
A library of free, high-quality photographs, with a paid tier.
Best for hero imagery on a tight budget.
Envato
An unlimited-download subscription for templates, stock, music and fonts.
Best for the everyday asset needs of a studio.
Shutterstock
A large library of stock photos, video and music.
Best for licensed commercial stock.
Getty Images
Premium editorial and creative photography.
Best for news, sport and high-end imagery.
Adobe Stock
Stock photos, video and templates built into Creative Cloud.
Best for assets that drop straight into Adobe apps.
Lummi Free
A curated library of free AI-generated photos and illustrations.
Best for quick placeholder and hero images.
Mobbin
A searchable library of real app and website screens.
Best for seeing how others have solved a design problem.
Dribbble Free
A showcase and hiring network for single design shots.
Best for visual and interface inspiration.
Behance Free
Adobe’s portfolio network for full project case studies.
Best for branding and case-study inspiration.
Awwwards Free
Website awards and a gallery of standout sites.
Best for benchmarking high-end web craft.
Godly Free
A curated gallery of standout, animation-heavy websites.
Best for web and motion inspiration.
Savee
Visual bookmarking and moodboards for designers.
Best for collecting references.
Cosmos
An ad-free inspiration and moodboard app, with search by image and colour.
Best for moodboards shared with clients.
Are.na
Calm, ad-free boards for collecting links, images and text.
Best for long-running research collections.
Pinterest
A huge visual discovery network.
Best for early, broad moodboards.
Websites and content
The platform decides how easy a site is to run after launch. We choose it by asking who will update the site, how often, and what it needs to connect to, then design within its strengths.
Where we start Webflow or Framer for marketing sites a team edits visually, Shopify for stores, and a headless CMS such as Sanity when content has to feed more than one place.
Webflow
A visual website builder with a built-in CMS.
Best for marketing sites that marketing teams edit themselves.
Framer
A design-led website builder with a CMS and AI agents that can build and update pages.
Best for polished sites with rich interaction, built quickly.
Squarespace
A hosted website builder with templates, online selling, booking and an AI site generator.
Best for small-business sites owners run themselves.
Wix Studio
Wix’s builder for agencies, with client handover, custom code and AI tools.
Best for client sites built on Wix.
Hostinger
Low-cost web hosting and domains, with a simple AI website builder.
Best for budget hosting and small sites.
WordPress Open source
The world’s most widely used CMS, with plugins for nearly anything.
Best for content-heavy sites and teams already familiar with it.
Elementor
A visual drag-and-drop page builder for WordPress.
Best for designing WordPress pages without code.
WP Engine
Managed WordPress hosting with staging sites, backups and security.
Best for WordPress sites that need reliable hosting.
Ghost Open source
A publishing platform for blogs and paid newsletters, with memberships built in.
Best for publications and creator newsletters.
Shopify
A hosted platform for online stores.
Best for selling online without looking after servers.
WooCommerce Open source
An online store plugin for WordPress.
Best for shops that need to live inside a WordPress site.
BigCommerce
A hosted e-commerce platform for larger catalogues and business-to-business selling.
Best for stores that have outgrown simpler builders.
Agentic Commerce Protocol Open standard
An open standard from OpenAI and Stripe that lets people buy products directly inside ChatGPT.
Best for stores that want to sell inside AI assistants.
Universal Commerce Protocol Open standard New
An open standard from Google and Shopify that lets AI shopping agents browse and buy from stores.
Best for making a store ready for AI shoppers.
Sanity
A headless CMS with an editing screen shaped around your content.
Best for custom sites, apps and content used in many places.
Storyblok
A headless CMS with a visual, on-page editor.
Best for editors who want to see the page as they change it.
Contentful
A headless CMS for large organisations.
Best for many sites, brands and languages from one place.
Prismic
A headless CMS where marketers build pages from sections developers have made.
Best for marketing sites on Next.js or Nuxt.
Hygraph
A headless CMS built around GraphQL that can pull in content from other systems.
Best for structured content from many sources.
Strapi Open source
A self-hostable headless CMS with an admin panel and APIs.
Best for developer-led sites that want an open-source CMS.
Payload Open source
An open-source CMS, now owned by Figma, that installs inside a Next.js app.
Best for custom builds where the CMS and the site share one codebase.
Astro Open source
A framework for fast, content-led websites, now backed by Cloudflare and still open source.
Best for marketing sites and blogs that need to load instantly.
Next.js Open source
The leading React framework for websites and web apps.
Best for sites with logins, dashboards or dynamic content.
Tailwind CSS Open source
A utility-first way of writing styles.
Best for consistent design built quickly in code.
Cloudflare
Hosting, security and serverless code on Cloudflare’s global network, with a preview link for every change.
Best for fast, secure sites with reviewable updates. This site runs on it.
Vercel
Hosting built around Next.js, with a preview for every change.
Best for Next.js sites and apps.
Netlify
Hosting for modern websites, with forms built in.
Best for simple, dependable hosting.
Render
Hosting for web services, background workers and Postgres databases.
Best for full-stack apps beyond static sites.
Railway
One-click hosting for apps and databases straight from a code repository.
Best for quick deploys of small back ends.
Fly.io
Runs apps in containers close to users around the world.
Best for globally distributed apps.
Supabase Open source
A Postgres database with sign-in, file storage and APIs included.
Best for the back end of web apps and client portals.
Algolia
Hosted search that returns results as you type.
Best for large catalogues and documentation.
Building with AI and code
AI has changed how quickly software gets made. Prompt-to-app builders can produce a working prototype in an afternoon, and coding agents take on much of the routine work in a real codebase. Neither replaces judgement about structure, security and upkeep, which is where most of the long-term cost lives.
Where we start Claude Code and Cursor for production work, and v0 or Lovable when an idea needs trying before it is built properly.
Claude Code
Anthropic’s coding agent, which works directly in a codebase.
Best for substantial changes across a real project.
Cursor
A code editor with AI built in.
Best for day-to-day development with AI help.
GitHub Copilot
GitHub’s AI coding assistant.
Best for AI help inside existing editors and code reviews.
Devin Desktop
Cognition’s AI code editor, formerly Windsurf, with a built-in manager for coding agents.
Best for an editor and background agents in one place.
Devin
A cloud coding agent you hand tasks to, which opens pull requests when it’s done.
Best for delegating well-scoped engineering work.
Google Antigravity
Google’s agent-first coding app and command-line tool, which replaced Gemini CLI for individuals.
Best for building with Gemini coding agents.
Jules
Google’s coding agent that works in a cloud machine and opens pull requests.
Best for handing off fixes and chores on GitHub.
Kiro Free plan
Amazon’s spec-driven AI code editor, which plans before it writes.
Best for plan-first AI coding, especially on AWS.
Cline Open source
An open-source coding agent for VS Code that runs on your own model keys.
Best for a transparent agent with any model.
Zed Open source
A fast code editor with AI agents built in.
Best for a lightweight, AI-ready editor.
JetBrains AI
The AI assistant and Junie coding agent inside JetBrains editors.
Best for teams already on JetBrains.
Warp
A terminal with built-in AI agents.
Best for developers who live on the command line.
OpenAI Codex
OpenAI’s coding agent, now a mode in the ChatGPT desktop app.
Best for handing off well-defined coding tasks.
v0
Vercel’s AI app builder, which turns a prompt into a working app with real code, a database and Git.
Best for quick, real-code prototypes of screens and apps.
Lovable
Builds full web apps from a conversation, including the database and sign-in.
Best for working prototypes and simple internal tools.
Bolt.new
An in-browser app builder that can also make mobile apps.
Best for rapid prototypes, including on phones.
Replit
An online development environment whose agent builds and hosts apps.
Best for small apps that need to be live quickly.
Figma Make
Turns prompts and designs into working prototypes inside Figma.
Best for testing an interaction before it is built.
Claude Design Preview
A Claude workspace for prototypes, slides and visual mock-ups made through conversation.
Best for quick prototypes, pitch decks and one-pagers.
Opal Free Experimental
A Google Labs tool that builds small, shareable AI apps from a plain description.
Best for no-code AI micro-tools.
Bubble
A visual no-code builder for full web apps, with a database and logic.
Best for non-developers building real apps.
Base44
An AI app builder from Wix that turns prompts into full apps with hosting and a database.
Best for internal tools and first versions.
GitHub
Where code is stored, reviewed and versioned.
Best for keeping every change tracked and reversible.
Firebase
Google’s back end for apps: sign-in, database and hosting, plus an AI app builder.
Best for app back ends without running servers.
Neon
A serverless Postgres database with instant branching.
Best for AI-built apps and preview environments.
Convex Open source
A real-time back end and database written in TypeScript.
Best for apps that update live.
Clerk
Drop-in sign-up, sign-in and user management.
Best for adding accounts to a web app quickly.
Auth0
Okta’s sign-in and identity platform, with enterprise single sign-on.
Best for apps that need enterprise-grade logins.
Resend
A developer email-sending service built around React Email.
Best for app and transactional email.
Postmark
A transactional email service known for reliable delivery.
Best for receipts, password resets and notifications.
Automation
Most businesses have work that is the same every time: copying details between systems, chasing approvals, sorting an inbox. Automation hands that work to software. The craft is in the edges: what happens when something fails, and where a person should still decide.
Where we start n8n for automations we host and monitor, and Zapier when a client’s team will look after it themselves.
n8n Self-hostable
A visual automation tool that can run on your own servers.
Best for complex workflows with full control over data and logs.
Zapier
The largest no-code automation service, with thousands of app connections.
Best for straightforward automations a team can manage itself.
Make
A visual automation builder with branching and loops.
Best for detailed workflows at a lower running cost.
Pipedream
A code-friendly automation platform with thousands of app connections, now owned by Workday.
Best for developers automating across APIs.
Activepieces Open source
An open-source automation tool with AI steps built in.
Best for a self-hosted alternative to Zapier.
Power Automate
Microsoft’s automation tool.
Best for businesses that run on Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Copilot Studio
Builds AI agents that work inside Microsoft 365 and Teams.
Best for businesses that run on Microsoft 365.
Workato
An enterprise integration and automation platform.
Best for connecting the systems of larger organisations.
Tray.ai
An enterprise automation and AI agent platform.
Best for complex workflows across many systems.
Relay.app
An automation tool designed around human approval steps.
Best for workflows where someone needs to sign off.
Gumloop
A no-code builder for workflows with AI at their centre.
Best for automations that read, write or decide with AI.
Lindy
Builds AI assistants for email, scheduling and sales from plain-English instructions.
Best for admin-style AI helpers.
Relevance AI
A no-code builder for teams of AI agents that do research and operations work.
Best for sales and operations agent teams.
Retool
A builder for internal tools and admin panels.
Best for back-office screens on top of existing data.
Softr
Builds portals and internal apps on top of Airtable and other data.
Best for client portals without custom development.
Reducto
Turns PDFs and scanned documents into structured data.
Best for reading invoices, forms and orders accurately.
Mindee
A document-reading service for invoices, receipts and IDs.
Best for extracting standard documents at volume.
AI that knows your business
A useful business assistant answers from your own documents, in your voice, and says when it doesn’t know. That takes more than a chat window: the documents have to be prepared and searchable, the assistant connected to the right systems, and its answers logged so they can be checked.
Where we start Claude or OpenAI models, documents searched with pgvector in Supabase, systems connected through MCP, and every answer logged in Langfuse.
Claude API
Anthropic’s models for developers, with tools for building agents.
Best for assistants that need to read carefully and follow instructions.
OpenAI API
OpenAI’s models for developers.
Best for assistants that need voice, images or OpenAI’s wider ecosystem.
Gemini API
Google’s models for developers, through AI Studio and Vertex AI.
Best for organisations on Google Cloud.
Amazon Bedrock
Many AI models, available inside Amazon Web Services.
Best for businesses whose data must stay in AWS.
Microsoft Foundry
AI models inside Microsoft Azure, formerly Azure AI Foundry.
Best for businesses whose data must stay in Azure.
OpenRouter
One API that reaches hundreds of AI models, with routing and fallback.
Best for comparing or switching models without new integrations.
Hugging Face
The main hub for open AI models, datasets and demo apps.
Best for finding and hosting open models.
Cloudflare AI Gateway Free plan
Sits between an app and its AI models to log, cache and route every request.
Best for keeping AI costs and usage visible.
Model Context Protocol Open standard
An open standard for connecting AI assistants to tools and data, often called MCP.
Best for letting an assistant work with your CRM, files and calendar safely.
Claude Agent SDK Open source
The agent framework behind Claude Code, packaged for building your own agents.
Best for custom agents on Claude.
OpenAI Agents SDK Open source
OpenAI’s framework for building agents in code.
Best for coded agents on OpenAI models.
Agent Development Kit Open source
Google’s framework for building and running agents.
Best for agents on Gemini or Google Cloud.
Vercel AI SDK Open source
A toolkit for adding AI features to web apps.
Best for chat and streaming answers on websites.
LlamaIndex Open source
A framework for building AI on top of your own data.
Best for document search pipelines.
LangGraph Open source
A framework for building multi-step AI agents.
Best for agents whose logic needs to be controlled step by step.
Mastra Open source
A TypeScript framework for agents, workflows and document search.
Best for JavaScript teams building agents.
CrewAI Open source
A Python framework for teams of role-based AI agents.
Best for multi-agent workflows in code.
Dify Open source
A visual builder for AI apps, agents and document search that can be self-hosted.
Best for self-hosted AI apps without heavy code.
Flowise Open source
A drag-and-drop builder for AI chains and agents.
Best for quick visual agent prototypes.
pgvector Open source
Adds search by meaning to a Postgres database.
Best for searching your documents without another service.
Pinecone
A hosted database for search by meaning.
Best for very large document collections.
Qdrant Open source
A vector database for search by meaning, in the cloud or self-hosted.
Best for self-hosted document search.
Weaviate Open source
A vector database that combines keyword and meaning-based search.
Best for document search that needs both kinds.
Turbopuffer
Low-cost vector and full-text search built on cloud storage.
Best for very large search indexes on a budget.
Chroma Open source
A lightweight database for AI embeddings.
Best for prototyping document search.
Firecrawl
Turns websites into clean text that AI can read.
Best for feeding a website’s content into an assistant.
Exa
A web search API built for AI apps and agents.
Best for giving an assistant live web research.
Langfuse Open source
Records and evaluates what an AI system did and why.
Best for checking answers, costs and quality over time.
Braintrust
An evaluation and logging platform for AI features.
Best for testing prompt and model changes before release.
LangSmith
LangChain’s tracing, evaluation and monitoring for AI apps.
Best for debugging how an agent behaves.
Arize Phoenix Open source
An open-source tool for tracing and evaluating AI apps.
Best for self-hosted AI monitoring.
Voiceflow
A builder for chat and voice assistants.
Best for customer-facing assistants with designed conversations.
Botpress
A platform for building AI chatbots and agents across channels.
Best for custom support and website bots.
Chatbase
Trains a website chatbot on your documents and pages.
Best for simple “ask our website” assistants.
Fin
An AI agent for customer support, from the company formerly called Intercom, now owned by Salesforce.
Best for answering support questions from your help centre.
Vapi
A platform for AI phone agents.
Best for answering calls and booking appointments.
Retell AI
A platform for AI phone agents.
Best for inbound and outbound call automation.
Bland
A platform for AI agents that make and take phone calls.
Best for high-volume calling.
ElevenLabs Agents
A voice agent platform built on ElevenLabs voices.
Best for natural-sounding voice assistants.
Synthflow
A no-code builder for AI voice agents.
Best for non-technical teams putting agents on the phone.
The systems you already run
Most of the value in a website or automation comes from what it connects to. These are the systems our clients most often run their business on, and the ones we most often connect.
Where we start No single pick here. The right system is the one your team already uses well; our job is to make it work with the others.
HubSpot
A CRM with marketing, sales and service tools.
Best for growing teams that want leads and email in one place.
Salesforce
The largest enterprise CRM.
Best for large sales organisations with complex processes.
Pipedrive
A CRM built around the sales pipeline.
Best for small sales teams.
Attio
A flexible, modern CRM.
Best for young companies that want to shape their own data.
Zoho CRM
An affordable CRM inside a wide suite of business apps.
Best for small businesses that want an all-in-one suite.
Xero
Cloud accounting software.
Best for invoicing, bills and bookkeeping for small businesses.
QuickBooks
Cloud accounting software from Intuit.
Best for small-business accounting, especially in the US and UK.
FreshBooks
Invoicing and accounting for small service businesses.
Best for freelancers and studios.
Wave Free
Free invoicing and basic accounting.
Best for very small businesses.
Gusto
Payroll, benefits and HR for small teams.
Best for small-business payroll in the US.
Wise Business
Multi-currency accounts and low-fee international transfers.
Best for paying and getting paid across borders.
Mercury
Online business banking for startups.
Best for startups and online businesses.
Stripe
Online payments, subscriptions and invoicing.
Best for taking payment on websites and apps.
Square
Payments for shops, restaurants and online sales.
Best for businesses that sell in person and online.
PayPal
Widely used online payments and checkout.
Best for taking payment with a brand customers already trust.
Paddle
Payments that handle sales tax worldwide as the seller of record.
Best for selling software and digital products internationally.
Klaviyo
Email and SMS marketing built for online stores.
Best for Shopify stores.
Mailchimp
Email marketing and newsletters.
Best for straightforward newsletters and campaigns.
Brevo
Email, SMS and marketing automation, formerly Sendinblue.
Best for budget-friendly marketing email.
Kit
Email marketing for creators, formerly ConvertKit.
Best for creator newsletters and email sequences.
beehiiv
A newsletter platform with growth and advertising tools.
Best for newsletter-first businesses.
ActiveCampaign
Email marketing with automation and a light CRM.
Best for automated nurture sequences.
Loops
Product and marketing email for software companies.
Best for onboarding emails for apps.
Airtable
A spreadsheet that works like a database.
Best for operational data that has outgrown a spreadsheet.
Notion
Docs, wikis and databases in one workspace.
Best for a team’s shared knowledge, project hubs and simple trackers.
Google Workspace
Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Calendar.
Best for everyday office work.
Microsoft 365
Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams and SharePoint.
Best for everyday office work in Microsoft-based organisations.
Calendly
Booking pages that sync with your calendar.
Best for letting customers book time without the back-and-forth.
Cal.com Open source
Open-source scheduling.
Best for booking that can be customised or self-hosted.
Acuity Scheduling
Appointment booking with intake forms and payments, from Squarespace.
Best for client and service bookings.
Typeform
Online forms that ask one question at a time.
Best for forms people don’t mind filling in.
Tally
A simple form builder with a generous free plan.
Best for quick forms without limits on responses.
Jotform
A form builder with payments, approvals and e-signatures.
Best for complex forms and intake.
Fillout
A form builder that writes straight into Airtable, Notion and other tools.
Best for forms that feed an existing database.
Zendesk
Customer support ticketing.
Best for support teams handling a high volume of requests.
Help Scout
A shared inbox and help centre for customer support.
Best for small support teams.
Front
A shared team inbox for email and messaging.
Best for client-service teams working from one inbox.
Freshdesk
Help desk ticketing with AI features.
Best for growing support teams.
Gorgias
A help desk built for online stores.
Best for support for Shopify stores.
Research and planning
Good work starts with an accurate picture of how things are today. These tools help us listen, map and prioritise before anything is designed or built.
Where we start Miro for mapping, Dovetail for making sense of interviews, and Microsoft Clarity for seeing how a current site is really used.
Miro
An online whiteboard for teams.
Best for mapping processes and running workshops.
Whimsical
Quick flowcharts, wireframes and mind maps.
Best for clear diagrams of how work flows.
Dovetail
A home for customer research and interview analysis.
Best for turning conversations into findings.
Maze
Remote testing of designs and prototypes.
Best for checking a design with real users before it is built.
Lyssna
Quick user tests and surveys.
Best for first-click tests, preference tests and short surveys.
Hotjar
Heatmaps, session recordings and on-site surveys, now part of Contentsquare.
Best for understanding behaviour on a live site.
Microsoft Clarity Free
Free heatmaps and session recordings.
Best for the same insight, at no cost.
Scribe
Records a process as a step-by-step guide while you do it.
Best for documenting how work happens today.
Loom
Quick screen-recorded videos.
Best for explaining a finding without a meeting.
Gamma
Builds decks and documents with AI.
Best for turning notes into a presentable report quickly.
Pitch
A collaborative presentation tool.
Best for polished decks a team builds together.
SparkToro
Audience research that shows what a market reads, watches and follows.
Best for positioning and choosing channels.
Clay
A spreadsheet that gathers company and contact data from many sources with AI.
Best for prospect research and outreach lists.
Measuring and maintaining
Launch is where a site starts being useful, not where the work ends. These tools show whether people can find it, whether it’s fast, whether everyone can use it, and whether anything has quietly broken.
Where we start Search Console and Lighthouse on every site, axe for accessibility, and an uptime monitor on anything a business depends on.
Google Search Console Free
Google’s report on how a site appears in search.
Best for indexing problems and the searches that bring people in.
Google Analytics
Google’s web analytics.
Best for detailed traffic and conversion reporting.
Plausible Open source
Simple, privacy-friendly analytics without cookies.
Best for clear numbers without a cookie banner.
Fathom Analytics
Privacy-first website analytics without cookies.
Best for simple, compliant traffic numbers.
Matomo Open source
A self-hostable alternative to Google Analytics.
Best for organisations that need to own their data.
Cloudflare Web Analytics Free
Free, privacy-first analytics for sites on Cloudflare.
Best for lightweight traffic stats.
PostHog Open source
Product analytics, session recordings and feature flags.
Best for web apps and digital products.
Mixpanel
Product analytics for user events and funnels.
Best for software products.
Amplitude
Product analytics and experimentation.
Best for larger product teams.
Semrush
A search marketing and competitor research suite, now part of Adobe.
Best for keyword research and competitive analysis.
Ahrefs
A search marketing suite known for its backlink data.
Best for understanding who links to you and to your competitors.
Moz Pro
A search marketing suite for keywords, links and site audits.
Best for classic SEO research.
Screaming Frog
A desktop crawler for technical SEO.
Best for auditing a site’s structure, links and metadata.
Yoast SEO Free plan
A WordPress plugin for on-page SEO and structured data.
Best for WordPress SEO basics.
Rank Math Free plan
A WordPress SEO plugin with structured data and AI features built in.
Best for WordPress SEO with more included.
Profound
Tracks how a brand appears and is cited in AI answer engines.
Best for AI search visibility for larger brands.
Peec AI
Tracks brand mentions, ranking and sources in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews.
Best for keeping an eye on AI search.
Otterly.AI
Lightweight monitoring of how a brand shows up in AI search.
Best for small teams starting with AI search.
Scrunch AI
Monitors AI search presence and helps make content easy for AI to find.
Best for improving visibility in AI answers.
Lighthouse Free
Google’s built-in audit for speed, accessibility and good practice.
Best for quick, repeatable quality checks.
PageSpeed Insights Free
Google’s speed report, using data from real visitors.
Best for seeing how fast a site is for the people who use it.
axe DevTools
An automated accessibility checker.
Best for catching accessibility issues during development.
WAVE Free
A visual accessibility checker from WebAIM.
Best for quick reviews that show issues in place on the page.
Stark
An accessibility checker for designs and code.
Best for catching contrast and accessibility issues in Figma.
Pa11y Open source
Automated accessibility testing from the command line.
Best for accessibility checks on every deploy.
Siteimprove
Site-wide scanning for accessibility, SEO and content quality.
Best for ongoing compliance on large sites.
Sentry
Error and performance tracking.
Best for knowing about a bug before a customer reports it.
Better Stack
Uptime monitoring, logs and alerts.
Best for an alert the moment a site or automation stops working.
Checkly
Monitoring that runs scripted browser and API checks.
Best for catching broken checkouts and logins.
UptimeRobot Free plan
Simple uptime and SSL certificate monitoring.
Best for basic up-or-down alerts.
Wordfence Free plan
A firewall and malware scanner for WordPress.
Best for keeping WordPress sites secure.
Cloudflare Turnstile Free
A privacy-friendly replacement for CAPTCHAs on forms.
Best for stopping form spam without puzzles.
How we run projects
The tools behind a project matter as much as the ones in it. Clear notes, tracked decisions and careful handling of passwords make the work calmer for everyone.
Where we start Notion for shared project pages, Linear for tasks, and a password manager for every login.
Linear
A fast, focused issue tracker.
Best for keeping build work moving.
Asana
Project and task management with timelines.
Best for cross-team projects.
monday.com
Visual work-management boards with automations.
Best for client-facing project tracking.
ClickUp
Tasks, documents and goals in one app, with AI agents.
Best for teams consolidating their tools.
Basecamp
A calm project hub with to-dos, message boards and client access.
Best for straightforward client collaboration.
Trello
Simple kanban boards.
Best for lightweight task tracking.
Jira
Issue and sprint tracking for software teams.
Best for engineering backlogs.
Productive.io
Agency management for projects, budgets, time and profitability.
Best for knowing the margin on every project.
Harvest
Time tracking with invoicing.
Best for billing by the hour.
Toggl Track Free plan
One-click time tracking and reports.
Best for understanding where time goes.
Clockify Free
A free time tracker for teams.
Best for time tracking on a budget.
Slack
Team messaging.
Best for shared channels with clients.
1Password
A password manager with shared vaults.
Best for sharing logins safely, never by email.
Bitwarden Open source
An open-source password manager.
Best for the same, with open-source code.
Proton Pass
A password manager with email aliases, from the makers of Proton Mail.
Best for privacy-focused teams.
Markup.io
Comments pinned directly onto live websites.
Best for precise feedback during a build.
DocuSign
Electronic signatures.
Best for signing agreements without printing.
Dropbox Sign
Electronic signatures, formerly HelloSign.
Best for simple contract signing.
PandaDoc
Proposals, quotes and contracts with e-signature built in.
Best for proposals that get signed.
HoneyBook
Client management for creative businesses: proposals, contracts, invoices and scheduling.
Best for studios and freelancers.
Bonsai
Proposals, contracts, time tracking and invoicing for freelancers and agencies.
Best for the admin side of a small agency.
Dubsado
Client portals, forms, contracts and invoicing with workflows.
Best for automating client onboarding.
Updated October 2026. Tools change quickly, so we revise this guide as the landscape moves. Product names are trademarks of their owners and appear here only to describe them.