禅HugozenOne person + a crew of AI bots · indie-site notes

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).

71 tools · 8 categories

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Build & hosting

Domains, hosting, databases, stack detection and experience checks.

  • Cloudflare cloudflare.com

    DNS, CDN, WAF, plus Pages and Workers at the edge.

    FreePaid
  • Cloudflare Pages developers.cloudflare.com

    Docs and deploy path for static and full-stack sites.

    Free
  • Vercel vercel.com

    Front-end and serverless hosting, strong for Next.js.

    FreePaid
  • Netlify netlify.com

    Static hosting with forms and edge functions.

    FreePaid
  • Supabase supabase.com

    Postgres, auth and storage in one backend kit.

    FreePaidOpen source
  • Neon neon.com

    Serverless Postgres that scales to zero.

    FreePaidOpen source
  • Railway railway.com

    Spin up apps and databases with little ops work.

    Paid
  • Fly.io fly.io

    Run containers close to your users.

    FreePaid
  • Astro astro.build

    Content-first framework with static output by default.

    FreeOpen source
  • Hugo gohugo.io

    Very fast static site generator.

    FreeOpen source
  • Next.js nextjs.org

    React full-stack framework for product and marketing sites.

    FreeOpen source
  • Wappalyzer wappalyzer.com

    Detects the tech stack behind a site.

    FreePaid
  • BuiltWith builtwith.com

    Look up sites by technology or domain.

    FreePaid
  • Wayback Machine web.archive.org

    Historical snapshots of pages and redesigns.

    Free
  • PageSpeed Insights pagespeed.web.dev

    Lab and field (CrUX) performance reports.

    Free
  • WebPageTest webpagetest.org

    Detailed multi-location speed tests (occasional 403 from some IPs).

    Free
  • Porkbun porkbun.com

    Domain registrar known for clear pricing.

    Paid
  • Cloudflare Registrar cloudflare.com

    At-cost domains if you already use Cloudflare.

    Paid

Payments

Common payout rails for indie builders; eligibility depends on region and entity.

  • Stripe stripe.com

    Mainstream global card payments with a deep ecosystem.

    Paid
  • Creem creem.io

    Indie-friendly payments; individuals can apply in some regions.

    Paid
  • Waffo waffo.com

    Newer merchant-of-record style rail with a friendly API.

    Paid
  • Polar polar.sh

    Open-source-friendly subscriptions and one-off sales for digital goods.

    PaidOpen source
  • Lemon Squeezy lemonsqueezy.com

    Merchant of record: tax and checkout handled for you.

    Paid
  • Paddle paddle.com

    Another major MoR, strong for SaaS subscriptions.

    Paid
  • Dodo Payments dodopayments.com

    Global payments that accept indie developer sign-ups.

    Paid
  • PayPal paypal.com

    Wide coverage; useful as a backup checkout option.

    Paid
  • Wise wise.com

    Cross-border payouts and FX with relatively clear fees.

    Paid

SEO tools

Indexing, technical audits, keywords and structured data.

  • Google Search Console search.google.com

    Indexing, queries, sitemaps and manual actions — essential.

    Free
  • Bing Webmaster Tools bing.com

    Indexing and performance on Bing and related AI search.

    Free
  • Ahrefs ahrefs.com

    Backlinks, keywords and competitor research workhorse.

    Paid
  • Semrush semrush.com

    Keyword, ads and content toolkit in one suite.

    Paid
  • Screaming Frog screamingfrog.co.uk

    Desktop crawler for technical SEO audits.

    FreePaid
  • Rich Results Test search.google.com

    Checks whether structured data qualifies for rich results.

    Free
  • Schema Markup Validator validator.schema.org

    Validates JSON-LD and microdata markup.

    Free
  • Robots.txt Tester technicalseo.com

    Quickly test whether robots rules block a path.

    Free
  • Surfer SEO surfer.ai

    Content briefs and coverage scored against the SERP.

    Paid
  • Google SEO Starter Guide developers.google.com

    Official Google starter — read before paid courses.

    Free

Competitors & lists

Traffic estimates, stack comparison and public leaderboards.

  • Similarweb similarweb.com

    Estimates traffic and traffic sources for sites.

    FreePaid
  • SimilarTech similartech.com

    Find competitors and leads by technology used.

    FreePaid
  • TrustMRR trustmrr.com

    Public or third-party indie revenue boards — verify any number yourself.

    Free
  • AlternativeTo alternativeto.net

    Find alternatives to a product (occasional 403 from some IPs).

    Free
  • Toolify toolify.ai

    AI tool directory and charts; you can submit a product.

    Free

Analytics

Traffic, session insights and privacy-friendly alternatives.

  • Google Analytics 4 analytics.google.com

    Default free analytics; mind consent and regional rules.

    Free
  • Umami umami.is

    Privacy-first analytics; self-host or use the cloud.

    FreePaidOpen source
  • Plausible plausible.io

    Cookie-free, minimal GA alternative.

    PaidOpen source
  • Microsoft Clarity clarity.microsoft.com

    Free heatmaps and session recordings.

    Free
  • Fathom Analytics usefathom.com

    Privacy-friendly paid analytics with a clean UI.

    Paid
  • Matomo matomo.org

    Full analytics suite you can self-host.

    FreePaidOpen source
  • PostHog posthog.com

    Product analytics, flags and session replay together.

    FreePaidOpen source
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics cloudflare.com

    Cookie-free, edge-side basic traffic stats.

    Free

Learning

Official docs, structured courses and Chinese go-overseas material.

  • 哥飞 · seo.web.cafe seo.web.cafe

    Ge Fei's Chinese SEO / go-overseas materials and community entry.

    FreePaid
  • Ahrefs Blog ahrefs.com

    Solid long-form on links and content strategy.

    Free
  • Ahrefs Academy ahrefs.com

    Free structured SEO courses.

    Free
  • Semrush Academy semrush.com

    Free certification courses for fundamentals.

    Free
  • Moz Learn SEO moz.com

    Classic explanations of core SEO concepts.

    Free
  • Backlinko backlinko.com

    Practical long-form on links and content growth.

    Free
  • MDN Web Docs developer.mozilla.org

    Authoritative docs for the web platform.

    Free
  • web.dev Learn web.dev

    Structured courses on performance, HTML and a11y.

    Free

Some links may later carry a referral label; when they do, it will be stated clearly. The list changes over time.