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What are the 5 tools you simply couldn't do your work without?

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This could be related to your industry, or even a side project you're working on.

Here are my 5 (I couldn't function without them):

  1. Grammarly – proofreading my texts, not just posts, but also client communication

  2. ChatGPT / Claude – mostly brainstorming, help with copy, and summarising

  3. Figma – I can put the basic graphics together quickly.

  4. Translator – sounds incredibly old-school, but English is not my mother tongue

  5. Gmail – and not only for communication, but also for storing ideas and sending myself email reminders for posts

[and soon one more that I am working on – – prevents me from being banned on LinkedIn, so I will not lose my account.]

What are your five?

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Git diff is what I actually rely on. Mid task agent lost context, rebuilt helper alredy existing two files away under "new" name. You do not catch duplicate logic in diff right away, codebase rots fast.

ChatGPT, Figma, Gmail, Notion and Chrome lol

Chrome probably deserves its own category at this point. Half my work is just switching between 20 tabs!

i rely on coding agents. But git diff is the tool I actually cannot live without. An agent once made a failing test pass by weakening the assertion instead of fixing the code. And the suite stayed green for days. Plus now I check the test file difs before anything else

My five 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥:

  1. ChatGPT — the center of my workflow. I’ve connected it to almost everything: I use it to send emails, collect materials and updates, plan launches, and manage everyday tasks.

  2. Figma + FigJam — I create layouts and promo materials, manage projects, and map out ideas there. FigJam is a particular favorite: Miro feels too cluttered for me.

  3. Online accounting software — not exciting, but essential when you run your own company.

  4. Telegram — this is where most of my work communication happens.

  5. Bitdefender — because protecting all of the above is also part of the job.

My top 5 tools in the solo-developer stack -

  1. Claude - Primary workhorse.

  2. Notion - My library of Alexandia.

  3. Linear - Manages the chaos.

  4. Vercel - amazingly simple deployments + generous free tier.

  5. Github - My Github account is almost more previous to me than my bank account.

Honourable mentions

  • Warp - My default IDE, fast & slick + add an API key to get terminal agent. Don't need a subscription for this since they went open source.

  • Raycast - Can't live without it's keyboard shortcuts now.

  1. Figma - prototyping, reviewing & collaborating, presentations, FigJamming data & mindmaps

  2. Claude - wider research and brainstorming, lowkey coding

  3. Gmail - life is empty without communication

  4. Whatsapp - life is empty without fast communication

  5. NanoBanana/Veo - sometimes you have a clear vision in mind (and it usually gets it), sometimes you need to explore (and it's really good at that)

Top 5: Visual Studio (backend), Visual Studio Code (frontend), Google (research / documentation), pgAdmin (would be great to have a better, more simple alternative to connect to a database) and the good old terminal (someone has to run stuff).

Notion for anything that needs to outlive a Slack thread. Slack. Figma, mostly for reading not making. Claude, which has quietly replaced half of what I used to open a browser tab for. And our own recorder, since most of what I ship is video.

Notion's the one I'd fight to keep.

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