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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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  1. Notion.

  2. Whispr Flow

  3. Claude

  4. Gmail

  5. Bluedot

solo builder, so my five do a lot of heavy lifting:

1. claude code, basically my engineering team at this point

2. fly.io, tiny vms that scale to zero, perfect for small services

3. neon, postgres i never have to babysit

4. resend, transactional email that just works

5. smolanalytics. full disclosure, this one is mine. i built it because i kept shipping blind: you ask your analytics questions in plain english from your editor and it answers with computed numbers, not hallucinated ones. it's open source, so calling it a tool i couldn't work without is at least honest

honorable mention: a paper notebook for everything no app has fixed yet. what's the most old-school thing on everyone's list?

Just 3 atm...

  • cursor

  • claude cowork

  • google workspace with gemini

My 5:

1. Xcode, Zed, Terminal for software development
2. Figma, Final Cut, Ableton for design, video & music production
3. Codex for agentic workflows
4. Gmail, Telegram for communication
5. tinypad for bookmarks & links

I've been exploring what tools can help reduce the time I spend on frontend UI design.

my 5:
- Claude code
- ChatGPT
- Docker
- Supabase

- Vercel

Great list, Nika! Totally get the Gmail reminders and Figma for quick visual fixes.

Here are the 4 I absolutely need to keep my workflow running:

  • Claude – My go-to for brainstorming, copy, and working through ideas.

  • Brevo – Crucial for handling all our email marketing and automation.

  • Canva – For throwing together clean marketing assets and visuals quickly.

  • Outlook & Teams – The essential hub for all client comms and staying aligned.

My 5:
1. Claude Code - my co-founder #2
2. Claude Code - my co-founder #3
3. Claude Code - my co-founder #4
4. Claude Code - my co-founder #5
5. Obsidian - sync my thoughts between devices, offload my brain

As a solo dev I need to leverage the agentic tools.

Solo founder building HealthOS — voice biomarkers + on-device AI for health coaches. My 5:

  1. Claude Code — I'd describe it as a junior CTO that never sleeps. I talk to it like a co-founder, it keeps the codebase consistent, drafts docs, and catches things I miss. Easily my #1.

  2. 2. Cursor — for when I want to stay in editor mode and not context-switch to terminal

  3. 3. Notion — single brain dump for everything: research notes, ICP docs, weekly reviews

  4. 4. Linear — solo sprints feel more real when something is tracking your commitments

  5. 5. SQLite — technically a database, but for a solo founder it's the most freeing "tool" in the stack: no server, no ops, just a file that scales further than you'd expect

The common thread for me: tools that compress the cognitive load of doing everything yourself. Curious if others on that solo/small team journey have found the same.

I use, in order:

  1. Microsoft Edge (browser)

  2. Gmail

  3. Google Calendar

  4. ChatGPT

  5. Android phone (Google Pixel 9 XL Pro)

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