Toolbox
A curated list for indie sites and going overseas: trends, hosting, payments, SEO, discovery, competitors and analytics. Notes are rewritten in my own words; links are plain (no affiliate tracking yet).
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Trends & demand
Spot rising topics, questions people ask, and search demand.
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Google Trends
trends.google.com
Interest over time, regions and related queries.
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Exploding Topics
explodingtopics.com
Tracks topics that are climbing before they peak.
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AlsoAsked
alsoasked.com
Turns People Also Ask into a question tree for content outlines.
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AnswerThePublic
answerthepublic.com
Breaks a seed into who/what/why questions and phrases.
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Keywords Everywhere
keywordseverywhere.com
Browser extension that shows volume and related terms beside search results.
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Cloudflare Radar
radar.cloudflare.com
Internet traffic and attack trends from Cloudflare’s network (occasional 403 from some IPs).
Build & hosting
Domains, hosting, databases, stack detection and experience checks.
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Cloudflare
cloudflare.com
DNS, CDN, WAF, plus Pages and Workers at the edge.
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Cloudflare Pages
developers.cloudflare.com
Docs and deploy path for static and full-stack sites.
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Vercel
vercel.com
Front-end and serverless hosting, strong for Next.js.
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Netlify
netlify.com
Static hosting with forms and edge functions.
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Supabase
supabase.com
Postgres, auth and storage in one backend kit.
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Neon
neon.com
Serverless Postgres that scales to zero.
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Railway
railway.com
Spin up apps and databases with little ops work.
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Fly.io
fly.io
Run containers close to your users.
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Astro
astro.build
Content-first framework with static output by default.
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Hugo
gohugo.io
Very fast static site generator.
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Next.js
nextjs.org
React full-stack framework for product and marketing sites.
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Wappalyzer
wappalyzer.com
Detects the tech stack behind a site.
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BuiltWith
builtwith.com
Look up sites by technology or domain.
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Wayback Machine
web.archive.org
Historical snapshots of pages and redesigns.
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PageSpeed Insights
pagespeed.web.dev
Lab and field (CrUX) performance reports.
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WebPageTest
webpagetest.org
Detailed multi-location speed tests (occasional 403 from some IPs).
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Porkbun
porkbun.com
Domain registrar known for clear pricing.
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Cloudflare Registrar
cloudflare.com
At-cost domains if you already use Cloudflare.
Payments
Common payout rails for indie builders; eligibility depends on region and entity.
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Stripe
stripe.com
Mainstream global card payments with a deep ecosystem.
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Creem
creem.io
Indie-friendly payments; individuals can apply in some regions.
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Waffo
waffo.com
Newer merchant-of-record style rail with a friendly API.
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Polar
polar.sh
Open-source-friendly subscriptions and one-off sales for digital goods.
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Lemon Squeezy
lemonsqueezy.com
Merchant of record: tax and checkout handled for you.
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Paddle
paddle.com
Another major MoR, strong for SaaS subscriptions.
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Dodo Payments
dodopayments.com
Global payments that accept indie developer sign-ups.
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PayPal
paypal.com
Wide coverage; useful as a backup checkout option.
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Wise
wise.com
Cross-border payouts and FX with relatively clear fees.
SEO tools
Indexing, technical audits, keywords and structured data.
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Google Search Console
search.google.com
Indexing, queries, sitemaps and manual actions — essential.
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Bing Webmaster Tools
bing.com
Indexing and performance on Bing and related AI search.
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Ahrefs
ahrefs.com
Backlinks, keywords and competitor research workhorse.
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Semrush
semrush.com
Keyword, ads and content toolkit in one suite.
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Screaming Frog
screamingfrog.co.uk
Desktop crawler for technical SEO audits.
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Rich Results Test
search.google.com
Checks whether structured data qualifies for rich results.
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Schema Markup Validator
validator.schema.org
Validates JSON-LD and microdata markup.
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Robots.txt Tester
technicalseo.com
Quickly test whether robots rules block a path.
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Surfer SEO
surfer.ai
Content briefs and coverage scored against the SERP.
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Google SEO Starter Guide
developers.google.com
Official Google starter — read before paid courses.
Discovery & links
Public communities and platforms for discovery; no paid link marketplaces.
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Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com
Tech and indie launch exposure; try Show HN.
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DEV Community
dev.to
Developer writing community; posts index well.
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Qiita
qiita.com
Japanese tech community where profile links help.
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Zenn
zenn.dev
Another Japanese developer publishing platform.
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Product Hunt
producthunt.com
Product launches and category browsing (occasional 403 from cloud IPs).
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Indie Hackers
indiehackers.com
Indie builder stories and a product directory.
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r/SEO
reddit.com
English SEO discussion; follow subreddit rules.
Competitors & lists
Traffic estimates, stack comparison and public leaderboards.
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Similarweb
similarweb.com
Estimates traffic and traffic sources for sites.
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SimilarTech
similartech.com
Find competitors and leads by technology used.
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TrustMRR
trustmrr.com
Public or third-party indie revenue boards — verify any number yourself.
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AlternativeTo
alternativeto.net
Find alternatives to a product (occasional 403 from some IPs).
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Toolify
toolify.ai
AI tool directory and charts; you can submit a product.
Analytics
Traffic, session insights and privacy-friendly alternatives.
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Google Analytics 4
analytics.google.com
Default free analytics; mind consent and regional rules.
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Umami
umami.is
Privacy-first analytics; self-host or use the cloud.
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Plausible
plausible.io
Cookie-free, minimal GA alternative.
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Microsoft Clarity
clarity.microsoft.com
Free heatmaps and session recordings.
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Fathom Analytics
usefathom.com
Privacy-friendly paid analytics with a clean UI.
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Matomo
matomo.org
Full analytics suite you can self-host.
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PostHog
posthog.com
Product analytics, flags and session replay together.
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Cloudflare Web Analytics
cloudflare.com
Cookie-free, edge-side basic traffic stats.
Learning
Official docs, structured courses and Chinese go-overseas material.
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哥飞 · seo.web.cafe
seo.web.cafe
Ge Fei's Chinese SEO / go-overseas materials and community entry.
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Ahrefs Blog
ahrefs.com
Solid long-form on links and content strategy.
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Ahrefs Academy
ahrefs.com
Free structured SEO courses.
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Semrush Academy
semrush.com
Free certification courses for fundamentals.
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Moz Learn SEO
moz.com
Classic explanations of core SEO concepts.
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Backlinko
backlinko.com
Practical long-form on links and content growth.
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MDN Web Docs
developer.mozilla.org
Authoritative docs for the web platform.
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web.dev Learn
web.dev
Structured courses on performance, HTML and a11y.
Some links may later carry a referral label; when they do, it will be stated clearly. The list changes over time.