Krishna Kant Singh

Needed a database for licenses and storage for the DMG without managing infrastructure. Supabase handled it all in one dashboard. It runs on PostgreSQL, so you get real SQL and queries. License keys, download usage, and DMG storage in a public bucket were set up in minutes with the clean JS client. Firebase uses NoSQL, which feels awkward for relational data like licenses and orders. PlanetScale lacks built-in storage, and Amazon Web Services (RDS + S3 + IAM) would’ve taken a full weekend. Supabase took an afternoon.

React powers both sides of Pluto Door — the website (via Next.js) and the desktop app (via Tauri). One language, one component model across everything. The ecosystem is huge — xterm.js, React Three Fiber, and Framer Motion cover almost any need. Vue.js, Svelte, and SolidJS are great, but React’s ecosystem makes it the most productive choice when building in small team.

Needed license emails that actually reach the inbox. Resend nailed it. Setup was simple — verify domain, grab an API key, and use SMTP with Nodemailer. Emails deliver in seconds, and the dashboard shows sent, delivered, and opened. SendGrid feels complex, Amazon Simple Email Service approval takes time, and Mailgun feels dated. Resend is clean, developer-friendly, and it just delivers.

Pluto Door is an SSH client, so it needs to feel native and stay lightweight. Electron was never an option — 200MB for a terminal app is too much. Tauri gives a ~25MB binary, native macOS performance, and a Rust backend handling SSH, encryption, and file transfers. The UI is still built with React, while the heavy work runs in Rust. Tauri’s security model is also tighter than Electron’s — important when dealing with SSH keys and server credentials. Smaller, faster, safer.

Pluto Door serves both Indian and global developers, and Razorpay handles both smoothly. INR and USD payments work without juggling multiple providers. Integration took about an hour — create order, verify signature, done. Just a few API calls and payments were live. Stripe onboarding in India can be tough for micro team, and Paddle or Gumroad take a bigger cut for a $12 product. Razorpay’s fees are reasonable, the dashboard is clean, and payouts have been reliable — it just works.

Push to main, and the site is live in ~30 seconds. No Dockerfiles, build scripts, or CI/CD setup needed. Preview deployments on every PR make testing easy before going live. Edge functions, automatic HTTPS, and analytics come built in. Netlify felt limiting with API routes, and AWS is overkill for a landing page. Vercel just works with Next.js — perfect when you're shipping micro team.

Next.js was the obvious choice for Pluto Door’s website. The App Router, file-based routing, and Server Components let us keep the frontend, API routes, and logic like payments, downloads, and emails in a single codebase. We use SSG for marketing pages, server routes for APIs, and client components for interactivity. Compared to Gatsby, Remix, or plain React, Next.js gave us the most with the least setup — letting us ship fast and worry less.

Fast. That's it. After years of VS Code feeling heavier with every update, Zed was a breath of fresh air. It launches instantly, never lags on large files, and the native performance is noticeable — especially when jumping between multiple project files while building Pluto Door. Built in Rust too, which felt fitting since Pluto Door's backend is Rust. Minimal, distraction-free, and gets out of the way so you can actually code. No extension bloat, no Electron overhead. Just a fast editor that respects your machine.

Used Figma to design the Pluto Door app UI and website mockups before writing any code. The real-time collaboration and component system made it easy to iterate fast as micro team — duplicate a frame, tweak, compare. Exporting assets and inspecting spacing/colors directly while coding saved a ton of back-and-forth. Sketch felt outdated, and Adobe XD just doesn't have the community or plugin ecosystem. Figma just works — in the browser, no installs, no friction.

Used Claude Code for most of the repetitive dev tasks — writing components, debugging build errors, fixing API routes, and iterating fast on UI changes. What makes it better than alternatives is the deep codebase awareness. It doesn't just look at one file — it understands how everything connects. You say "fix the download button" and it knows which file, which state, which route. Cursor and Copilot feel like autocomplete in comparison. This feels like pair programming with someone who's actually read your code.