Hosting & SaaS Reviews by Tom Rigby

Keap Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) remains a dominant force in the small business automation space, offering deep CRM integration that most direct competitors cannot match. However, my testing of their native mobile…

Zapier vs Make: 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 Make is the superior choice for small businesses requiring complex logic and lower costs, whereas Zapier remains viable only if you strictly…

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 deploying three different board engines into production stacks across four distinct Austin fintech and e-commerce seed-stage environments, Trello remains…

The Complete Guide to Best Notion Alternatives For Teams 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 four distinct startup environments in Round Rock and South Congress, I found that Coda is the…

The Complete Guide to Best Crm For Real Estate Agents Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer For real estate agents managing high-volume lead pipelines, HubSpot Service Hub is the only CRM that balances deep real estate-specific workflows…

Trello vs Asana 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 tools across our local Austin fintech and e-commerce startups for a 72-hour stress period, Asana proved superior for teams requiring complex dependency tracking and timeline…

Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 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 deploying both suites across four distinct Austin seed-stage startups, I found that Google Workspace wins on real-time collaboration speed and cost-efficiency, while…

ConvertKit Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer ConvertKit stands out as the superior choice for creators and small SaaS teams who need robust email automation without the enterprise bloat of Mailchimp or the complexity of HubSpot. In…

Squarespace vs Wix Which Is Better — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer If you are building a visual portfolio or a brochure-style business site, Squarespace delivers superior design templates and smoother image handling, though you will pay a…

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 After deploying stacks across seed-stage fintech apps and e-commerce storefronts in my Austin lab, I recommend WP Engine as the only reliable choice for beginners who…

Asana vs Monday.com: 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 under 25 employees needing a unified platform for tasks and lightweight CRM, Asana offers a more stable API and lower…

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 Upgrading from shared hosting is inevitable once your site hits approximately 50,000 monthly visitors or begins experiencing latency spikes above 800ms. I have seen seed-stage Austin…

How to Choose Best Web Hosting For WordPress Multisite: 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 small businesses running a WordPress Multisite network, WP Engine remains the only managed host that consistently handles network-level…

How to Choose Best Crm For Real Estate Agents: 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 real estate agents managing a pipeline of 50+ leads monthly without a dedicated IT team, Pipedrive offers the…

The Complete Guide to Web Hosting With Best Uptime — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After stress-testing 12 different providers across our Austin lab for 72 hours each, Kinsta stands out as the only managed host that consistently…

Hostinger vs Bluehost: 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 Austin startups needing a budget-friendly foundation, Hostinger delivers superior raw performance and lower latency compared to Bluehost, making it the…

The Complete Guide to Best Managed WordPress Hosting — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer After stress-testing over 20 managed environments for a seed-stage fintech startup in East Austin, WP Engine remains the only choice that consistently delivers sub-100ms…

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 seed-stage e-commerce or membership site in Austin, I recommend WP Engine for its superior managed…