Best Small Developer Apps

Software
1

After listening to one of the last couple episodes I decided to try FoodNoms again after David mentioned it. Now with the AI integration I think it’s the best food tracking app out there. It made me think about what everyone else is using for their everyday apps that are from small time/independent developers.

2

I am sure this will be a popular answer…… Drafts. A one person show!

10 Likes
3

Noteplan lone developer constantly iterating and very active on discord +1 for Drafts as well

8 Likes
4

From a quick glance at my Home Screen:

  • Reeder
  • Mona
  • WaterMinder
  • Due
  • Spring
  • Strides
  • Home+
  • FoodShiner
1 Like
5

Damn I forgot Mailmate, Benny is another very active dev producing a high quality product, plus running an active mailing list alone.

5 Likes
6

UpNote (replaced Evernote)
Raindrop.io (replaced Instapaper)

Both are very frequently updated.

7

Eaglefiler, Notebooks and KeepIt all seem to be from indie developers as well.

2 Likes
8

I remain amazed at the frequency of updates, in similar fashion to Drafts, that get rolled out in Bookends, by Sonny Software.

I will try and confirm things again — was posted somewhere on their forums before — but has also been offered as a software product for decades now, and is one of the Mac’s oldest continuously developed applications.

3 Likes
9

This would be a great app for me at my current position. I have a lot of reference material and I suck at organizing it.

1 Like
10

I’m a big fan of Matthias Gansrigler work, developer of Yoink, Screenfloat, and Transloader.

I think he’s currently working on the next version of Screenfloat. This is one of my most used app on the Mac alongside Yoink.

1 Like
11

Yoink is probably my most used visible app, after Alfred, now that I think about it.

TE, BTT, Hazel and KM are up there as well, but most of their magic happens in the background, without focus being taken.

Which has then also reminded me to add those to the list:

Alfred;
Hazel by Noodlesoft;
Keyboard Maestro;
BetterTouchTool.

All of these essentials, are — to my understanding — the products of very tiny/single person developer “companies”.

2 Likes
12

I’ll second Drafts and add Obsidian, which has grown beyond the two original wife and husband devs it but is still a small bootstrapped team.

1 Like
13

Tap Forms - Brendan Duddridge

14

In addition to some already mentioned, I would add:

  • Marcos Tanaka’s apps: MusicBox; Play; MusicHarbor
  • PopClip
  • MacUpdater
  • Downie
  • DropOver
  • Sindre Sorhus’s apps: Hyperduck; Velja
3 Likes
15

For Apple fans specifically:

4 Likes
16

This is easy!

  1. Alfred
  2. PopClip
  3. BetterTouchTool
  4. Hazel
  5. Reeder
  6. Obsidian
  7. Velja - Sindre Sorhus
2 Likes
17

I love Anybox. No more Raindrop subscription for me.

6 Likes
18

Nice! Mind sharing how is it different from a browser bookmarks or safari read later? And, is it only iCloud sync and no other way? Has web clipping ability?

Also, curious how is it different from using Reeder or Pocket. Reeder especially since it is a RSS Reader plus you can save articles in the read later section from other apps.

19

It’s like having a cross browser bookmark manager, which is convenient for me because I tend to switch browsers a lot. Easily drag and drop to the filesystem and I can store the bookmarks as .webloc files in my vaults so it’s future proof.

Yes, sync is iCloud only afaik. It does not have exactly a web clipper but it can archive the web page (also I think it can basically archive other types of files)

20

If it’s archive, that is web clipping since it has to scrape the webpage to store it offline. How does this feature work? I tried so many web page storage/archival apps but nothing comes close to Evernote web clipper