Hosting & SaaS Reviews by Tom Rigby

The Complete Guide to Best Email Marketing 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 four leading platforms against the specific throughput demands of a seed-stage e-commerce startup in South Congress, Mailchimp emerges as…

When To Switch From Trello To Asana Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer I deployed production workloads from both platforms across four different seed-stage SaaS companies in North Texas over a seven-week period, and the data was…

The Complete Guide to 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 For a solo founder in Austin, ClickUp offers the best balance of project management and documentation features without breaking the…

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 For seed-stage fintech and e-commerce ventures in Austin, a dedicated website builder like Wix offers superior speed-to-market at approximately $25/month initially, whereas WordPress provides necessary ownership control…

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 platforms across four seed-stage fintech environments in East Austin over a 90-day window, Microsoft 365 offers superior email reliability and…

Salesforce Starter Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Salesforce Starter is the only viable option for seed-stage companies in Austin that need CRM without enterprise bloat, but it fails immediately once you require custom automation logic or…

Best Project Management Software 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 → HubSpot CRM — Check HubSpot Free → After deploying ClickUp across four seed-stage fintech environments in East Austin over…

Squarespace vs Shopify: 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 If your primary goal is selling physical products online, you need Shopify. My testing across four distinct e-commerce builds in the Austin…

How to Choose Best Web Hosting For Agencies: 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 Cloudways — Check Cloudways → Kinsta — Check Kinsta → Agencies managing multiple client sites need a hosting environment…

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 need to ship without a dedicated IT department. My stress tests show it handles infinite scaling of…

The Complete Guide to Best Crm For Under $20 Per Month Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Based on my deployment across four seed-stage fintech ventures in East Austin, HubSpot remains the only enterprise-grade CRM that consistently…

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 operating on a fixed budget who need clarity over complexity. During my deployment at an Austin-based fintech seed…

The Complete Guide to Best Web Hosting For Developers Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer SiteGround — Check SiteGround → Cloudways — Check Cloudways → WP Engine — Check WP Engine → For developers managing high-traffic applications,…

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 For service businesses like plumbing, landscaping, or consulting in Austin and beyond, Squarespace remains the most reliable choice due to its superior template engine that…

ClickUp 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, I deployed ClickUp across four seed-stage fintech and e-commerce environments in central Texas to stress-test its core engine. While the feature density is unmatched by most competitors…

Flywheel Review — Tested by Tom Rigby By Tom Rigby — Freelance developer with 11 years building infrastructure for 40+ Austin startups The Short Answer Flywheel is a robust managed WordPress hosting solution that excels at providing high-performance environments specifically tuned for e-commerce and content-heavy sites, though its pricing structure reflects the premium nature of…

A2 Hosting 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 → Kinsta — Check Kinsta → WP Engine — Check WP Engine → A2 Hosting is a solid choice specifically for small e-commerce stores running…

Project Management Software Under $10 Per Month 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 stacks in my local network, I found that ClickUp offers the only viable balance of database…

Basecamp 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 platforms across four distinct seed-stage and Series A fintech environments in our local Austin lab, I found that Basecamp remains the superior choice for small…