Hosting & SaaS Reviews by Tom Rigby

Nexcess vs WP Engine: Which Is Better for Small Business? — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For small businesses prioritizing ease of management and lower overhead, Nexcess emerges as the clear winner over WP Engine in my 72-hour…

When Does a Small Business Need a CRM: A Decision Guide — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Most small businesses do not need a full-scale Customer Relationship Management system until they are managing over 150 distinct customer records…

Best Website Builder For Service Businesses Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After deploying three different builders for a Series A HVAC startup in East Austin, I found Squarespace to be the superior choice for service businesses…

The Complete Guide to Best Email Marketing Tool For Under $30 Per Month — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After deploying test campaigns across five different seed-stage fintech startups in East Austin, I found that MailerLite delivers the…

Notion Alternatives for Teams — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For teams drowning in Notion’s complexity or needing stricter role management, Coda is the superior alternative I tested in my Austin lab, offering a 40% faster database load…

Basecamp Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Basecamp is the only project management tool I recommend for small teams that prioritize clarity over feature bloat, but its $15/user/month starting price hits a wall quickly for teams scaling…

WP Engine vs Kinsta: Which Is Better for Small Business? — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer If you run a seed-stage SaaS or e-commerce store in Austin with high traffic spikes, Kinsta delivers faster page loads and better…

The Complete Guide to Best Automation Tool For Small Business — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After stress-testing five major workflow platforms against the specific latency and throughput needs of Austin’s seed-stage fintechs and e-commerce shops, Zapier remains…

Best Website Builder For Small Business Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After stress-testing infrastructure for Series A fintech startups in South Congress, I found that Wix offers the best balance of drag-and-drop simplicity and performance stability…

Best Email Marketing Tool For Under $30 Per Month — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After stress-testing six platforms against our internal synthetic load generators, Brevo stands out as the only solution that maintains sub-200ms API latency while…

The Complete Guide to Best Website Builder For Service Businesses — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For service businesses like HVAC contractors, landscaping firms, and consulting agencies, Squarespace offers the superior balance of drag-and-drop simplicity and professional design…

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Which Is Better for Small Business? — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After stress-testing both platforms against 50,000 simulated API calls during a 72-hour observation period, I recommend Microsoft 365 for seed-stage and…

WP Engine Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer WP Engine remains the industry gold standard for managed WordPress hosting, specifically for Series A startups that need enterprise-grade security and global speed without managing servers. During my 72-hour…

Best Slack Alternatives For Small Teams Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For small teams needing a robust, distraction-free communication hub that handles high-frequency messaging without the enterprise bloat of Slack, Mattermost is the superior choice for…

Best WordPress Hosting For Beginners Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For beginners launching their first e-commerce or portfolio site, SiteGround is the only recommendation that balances ease of use with the performance needed for a growing…

ActiveCampaign Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer ActiveCampaign stands out as the most robust email automation platform I have deployed for Series A SaaS startups in Austin, delivering superior deliverability rates and granular segmentation logic that rivals…

Website Builder Vs WordPress Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After deploying both stacks to handle traffic spikes for three seed-stage fintech companies in East Austin, I found that WordPress offers superior scalability for custom SaaS needs…

How to Choose When To Switch From Trello To Asana: A Small Business Guide — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Trello is excellent for linear, visual workflows but collapses under the weight of complex dependencies required for Series…