The Not For Us List
Curation means saying no. Here are the tools we don't recommend - and why.
We believe in transparency. Some tools are industry standards but aren't right for most startups. Others have shut down or been acquired. This page explains our reasoning and suggests alternatives.
These are our opinions based on experience. Your mileage may vary.
Tools We Don't Recommend
The #1 software development tool used by large agile teams.
Jira requires significant care and feeding to maintain. For most startups, the complexity isn’t worth it when simpler alternatives exist.
The open-source e-commerce platform for WordPress.
WooCommerce runs on WordPress, which we do not recommend for startups due to security vulnerabilities, maintenance overhead, and hosting complexity. Modern alternatives provide better security, reliability, and developer experience out of the box.
Instead, consider:
The world's #1 CRM.
Salesforce requires significant care and feeding to maintain. For most startups, simpler CRM solutions will serve you better without the overhead.
The world's most popular website builder.
WordPress's plugin model doesn't scale well for startups. Plugin conflicts, security vulnerabilities, and maintenance overhead make modern alternatives more attractive.
Think we got something wrong? and let us know.