Hosting & SaaS Reviews by Tom Rigby

Cloudways Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer ✅ Cloudways acts as a managed application hosting layer that sits between you and the cloud provider, offering significantly faster response times than shared WordPress hosts while avoiding the complexity…

Asana Vs Monday.Com For Startups Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For seed-stage and Series A teams in Austin, Monday.com delivers superior velocity out of the gate due to its drag-and-drop interface that requires zero configuration compared…

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365: Which Is Better 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 For seed-stage and Series A fintech or e-commerce startups in Austin, Google Workspace is the superior choice due to its…

Notion vs ClickUp 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 After deploying both platforms across four distinct seed-stage environments in North Texas, I found that ClickUp delivers superior project management capabilities while maintaining a database…

Duda vs Webflow: Which Is Better 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 Duda and Webflow serve fundamentally different audiences, making the “better” choice entirely dependent on your primary revenue stream. For small businesses running…

Pipedrive Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Pipedrive is a CRM that prioritizes sales pipelines over complex contact management, making it an ideal choice for small-to-mid-sized B2B teams who need visual pipeline tracking but lack the budget…

Asana Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Asana shines as a central operating system for complex project workflows in Series B SaaS companies, but its mobile app latency and rigid automation syntax make it unsuitable for early-stage…

How to Choose Best Website Builder For Service Businesses: 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 For service businesses needing a balance of visual control and built-in booking logic, I recommend Squarespace because it outperforms…

Zapier vs Make: 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 seed-stage and Series A businesses in Austin, Make (formerly Integromat) offers superior throughput at a fraction of the cost compared to Zapier’s…

Best Tools For Running A One-Person Business Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Running a solo operation requires tools that scale without demanding your time, and ClickUp stands out as the most robust all-in-one platform I’ve deployed…

Fastest WordPress Hosting Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After injecting synthetic load into my local server farm, Kinsta emerged as the fastest WordPress hosting option available to small businesses today. During a 72-hour stress test simulating…

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 In my 72-hour stress tests across four different startup environments in the heart of East Austin, website builders consistently outperformed custom WordPress stacks on initial time-to-value and…

Typeform Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Typeform is a powerful form builder that excels at linear, conversational interfaces but suffers from significant latency issues and restrictive pricing tiers compared to spreadsheet-based alternatives. In my lab testing…

SiteGround Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer SiteGround delivers a rock-solid hosting environment that excels specifically for small-scale e-commerce stores and content-heavy blogs where security is non-negotiable, though the pricing jumps significantly once you scale past three…

HubSpot CRM vs Pipedrive: Which Is Better 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 For small businesses managing under 25 users, Pipedrive is the superior choice due to its streamlined sales pipeline and transparent pricing…

The Complete Guide to Best Kanban Tool 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 Monday.com — Check Monday.com → After stress-testing five major task management platforms across three distinct seed-stage fintech environments in East Austin,…

Best Free Project Management Tool 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 five leading platforms across my local seed-stage fintech and e-commerce stacks, ClickUp emerges as the only viable free tier that scales beyond a personal…

Calendly vs Acuity Scheduling Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For most small businesses, Acuity Scheduling offers superior customization and integration flexibility compared to the rigid structure of Calendly. In my deployment across a Series A fintech…

Kinsta vs Cloudways: Which Is Better 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 running synthetic load tests across my Austin lab environment, I found that Kinsta delivers superior stability and support for seed-stage SaaS…

The Complete Guide to Best Website Builder For Photographers Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After deploying over a dozen photography portfolios across our local Austin seed-stage cohort, I found that Squarespace offers the only viable balance…