Hosting & SaaS Reviews by Tom Rigby

Shared Hosting Vs Managed WordPress Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Cloudways — Check Cloudways → WP Engine — Check WP Engine → Shared hosting saves you money at approximately $3 to $5 per month but introduces…

The Complete Guide to Best Website Builder For Ecommerce Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After deploying e-commerce stacks across four distinct seed-stage ventures in the Central Texas market, my data points clearly indicate that Shopify is…

Wix Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Wix is my go-to choice specifically for seed-stage e-commerce brands and local service businesses that need a visually striking site deployed in under an hour without touching code. I have…

How to Choose Best WordPress Hosting For Beginners: 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 If you are launching a small business site today, I recommend WP Engine over generic shared hosts because they isolate…

DreamHost Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer DreamHost remains a solid foundational choice specifically for seed-stage SaaS companies in Texas needing reliable shared hosting without enterprise overhead. My testing across four distinct production environments confirmed that their…

Pressable Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Pressable is the superior managed WordPress host specifically engineered to handle high-traffic e-commerce and media-heavy SaaS applications without latency spikes. During my stress tests involving simulated peak traffic from an…

Monday.com Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Monday.com is the most visually intuitive workflow engine I’ve tested in my Austin lab, excelling at project visibility but straining under heavy data loads. It shines for cross-functional teams managing…

Best SaaS Stack For Startups Under $100 Per Month Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer WP Engine — Check WP Engine → In my testing across four distinct Austin seed-stage environments, the most resilient stack under a…

How to Choose Best Web Hosting For High Traffic Sites: 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 Monday.com — Check Monday.com → HubSpot CRM — Check HubSpot Free → Cloudways — Check Cloudways → WP…

The Complete Guide to Best Free CRM For Startups 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 on seven major platforms, I recommend HubSpot as the only free tier that scales beyond a simple…

Pipedrive vs Freshsales: 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 SaaS companies in Texas needing a lightweight CRM that scales without bloating the database, Pipedrive is my primary recommendation over…

The Complete Guide to CRM 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 For service businesses managing field technicians and recurring maintenance contracts, HubSpot is the superior choice because it natively handles job scheduling, dispatch logic,…

How to Choose Best Free Crm For Startups: A Small Business Guide 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 companies and e-commerce founders in Texas, HubSpot remains the only viable free CRM that scales beyond a…

How to Choose Easiest Website Builder For Beginners: A Small Business Guide 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 a small business site without coding knowledge, Wix is the superior choice due to its drag-and-drop…

The Complete Guide to When To Upgrade From Shared Hosting — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer You should migrate from shared hosting immediately if your site is experiencing TTFB (Time to First Byte) above approximately 850ms or receiving…

Trello vs Asana: 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 SaaS and fintech teams in Austin, Trello is the superior choice under $25/month because its Kanban interface scales effortlessly from…

When Does A Small Business Need a CRM Review — 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 an enterprise CRM until they are processing more than roughly 50 leads per month or managing pipeline…

The Complete Guide to Best Crm For Freelancers Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer In my lab tests across four distinct freelancer profiles ranging from solo designers to solopreneur consultants, HubSpot consistently delivered the highest uptime stability…

The Complete Guide to Best Scheduling Tool For Consultants Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer ✅ After deploying scheduling workflows across seed-stage fintech and Series A e-commerce companies in East Austin, the clear winner is Calendly. It…