My Go-To Stack and Free Tools That Power It

How I go from zero to production-ready apps using a lean tech stack, generous free tiers, and AI-powered IDEs—while staying focused on building actual solutions.

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As someone who balances freelance work, community projects, and niche product building with very tight budgets, I’ve found a setup that helps me go from code to production quickly—with stability, structure, and just the right level of complexity.

This post walks through my go-to tools and workflow for getting things done, from landing pages to production-ready MVPs—all while keeping costs low thanks to generous free tiers.

I am not affiliated with any of the tools mentioned in this post.

The Tools

For Domain Management

porkbun is my go-to for domain registration and management. They offer a wide range of domain extensions and simple yet complete user interface.

For Landing Pages

For a clean, fast, mobile-responsive landing page with memberships, ecommerce, few sections, Strikingly gets the job done. I’ve used it for quick project launches and validation experiments.

  • Paid tiers: The offer i use provide 3 website Custom domains, advanced analytics, ecommerce integration, and more.
  • Why I use it: It’s less time fiddling with design and more time focusing on what matters—testing interest or collecting sign-ups.

For Backend Prototypes

  • Node.js, Express, EJS, TypeScript: When I’m testing an idea or shaping a product structure, I reach for a classic server-side stack: Express with EJS and TypeScript. No frontend frameworks yet—just clean old MVC and fast iteration.

  • Why this stack: As a backend specialist, I prefer to think in pages and flows first, not components and states. This stack lets me sketch the skeleton of the app before investing time in full-blown frontend architecture, most of the time i hire someone for the frontend if there’s one.

  • Java, Spring Boot, Quarkus: Most of the time, I use Java, Spring Boot, for experimentation purpose and testing new framework features.

For Version Control & CI/CD

Bitbucket (Private Repos + Pipelines) All my code lives in private Bitbucket repositories. I used their free tier for years, but recently moved to the Standard plan because i work with a young graduate developer on some projects—we collaborate entirely within Bitbucket, using issues features, pull requests and code reviews to level up both our skills.

  • Current plan: Standard (includes 2 users and more build minutes).

SonarQube (Free Tier) Clean code matters—even when moving fast. I use the SonarQube Cloud mostly to enforce code quality and spot security issues rigth upfront. I don’t let sonarCloud stop the build in case of quality gate failure, the free tiers Sonar Way rules impose 80% test code coverage by default, who have time for that :-)

  • Free tier: locked you with built in Sonar Way rules.
  • Why I use it: Old corporate habits! :-) It reminds me that even “temporary” code lives forever and helps me learn securities issues and clean code practice.

For Infrastructure

  • Oracle Cloud Free Tier = MVP Heaven The underrated Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has a generous free tiers out there. I run my staging environments on VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro Ubuntu VMs.

  • Free tier good for playground (1 core OCPU, 1 GB memory, 0.48 Gbps network bandwidth)

  • My setup: Dockerized apps, Shared staging server, Caddy as a reverse proxy (with built-in HTTPS and auto TLS renewal)

It’s an underrated platform for solo developers.

  • ** Authentication and Authorization**: I use Appwrite (Open Source Firebase Like) or Auth0

For Databases & Messaging

Depending on what i’am prototyping or the tech i’am learning i started everything on SQLite when fast prototyping. In my toolbelt, I kept Docker compose for:

  • PostgreSQL + pgvector extension + CDC enabled configuration file
  • Neo4j Community Edition
  • RabbitMQ

Each service runs in a container, isolated but networked—sharing compute on OCI, with Docker Compose.

For Code Editing(a.k.a. Where I Actually Live)

Yes, I use multiple IDEs:

  • Zed + Gemini Flash: Fast, minimal, great display for deep focus.
  • Cursor + built-in model: My go-to for structured builds and test writing.
  • VS Code: Swiss-army knife, especially for frontend tweaks and quick scripting.
  • IntelliJ Ultimate + Gemini Flash: The only IDE I’ve paid for.

see my other post on what i’am building Free tiers and picking the right tools, moving with clarity. I get my stuff to work, get it used, and make keep it clean and “fancy” after it’s done.