Services
The services I rely on the most and which I use practically every day.
- GitHub
- Github is where I host all my code. I also run CI/CD pipelines via GitHub Actions.
- Cloudflare
- Cloudflare is more than a CDN. Almost every site I own and 95% of my clients' sites use Cloudflare. Caching, Redirection Rules, Firewall, SSL, etc., you get the whole set.
- Figma
- Figma is just the best online design tool on the internet.
- Serverpilot
- Serverpilot is a service that allows you to provisioning a server in minutes even if you never have setup a server from scratch. Once the server is ready,you can create, edit, delete sites from the friendly UI. This service has saved me hundreds of hours of maintaining my servers.
- RunCloud
- RunCloud is like Serverpilot, but on steroids. I didn't use it before because I knew about it a few months ago, but this has been my choice since then.
- Laravel Forge
- Provision and deploy unlimited PHP applications on DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon, Hetzner, and more, unique for Laravel applications.
Hosting
We need to serve the site from somewhere, right?
- Digitalocean
- There is nothing better to get complete control of where your sites run than your own VPS. I have been using DigitalOcean since 2016, and I have never lost a byte. Combined with services like Serverpilot, RunCloud, or Laravel Forge you won't need a sysadmin again.
- AWS - Amazon
- When your project needs a more fancy architecture, autoscaling, distributed databases, non a typical setup, AWS is there for you. You can deploy any architecture you can imagine.
- Kinsta
- For clients who don't want to maintain a VPS or server but need serious and professional WordPress Hosting, Kinsta is my choice.
- Netlify
- If the static or headless sites are your thing, Netlify is my recommendation. The free tier is enough for 80% of the sites.
BTW, this site is hosted there.
WordPress Themes & Plugins
The first thing you need to think about when you need to start a new WordPress site is what theme I will use?
- Sage
- Sage is a WordPress starter theme with a modern development workflow. Sage is my personal choice if I need to develop a site for a client, have complete control over the theme, and develop using modern tools and workflows.
- WP Astra
- Realistically, not all my clients have the budget or time to develop a WordPress site from scratch and use fancy tech. When a client needs a fast or cheap site, I use Astra as my started theme.
- Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)
- ACF is my Swiss knife for adding custom fields to WordPress. It's a time saver for real.
- WP Rocket
- The most powerful web performance plugin out there, along with Cloudflare, your site's performance will increase.
- Elementor
- Yeah, I know... but still, let's be honest, I have use Elementor in big governmental institutions where the content creators need an easy and not techy way to update content and layouts. Here Elementor becomes very handy, trust me.
- Rank Math
- I made the switch from Yoast when they started adding ugly marketing banners on the admin. Math Rank does the job and does it great, hands down.
Software
The essential ingredients to create spells and magic. 🧙🏽♂️
- PHPStorm
- The best IDE for PHP developers. Period, for everything related to PHP, this is my default IDE.
- VSCode
- For any non-PHP code, HTML, Javascript, CSS, etc. VSCode is the best of the best.
- TablePlus
- TablePlus is an excellent tool for managing your WordPress tables, Modern, MacOS native, and friendly GUI.
- Postman
- For API development and testing, Postman is my go-to.
- Tinkerwell
- Tinkerwell is an excellent tool for debugging and testing your PHP projects. It is not only for Laravel; it also works great with WordPress.
- Iterm2
- Iterm2 is my favorite terminal. It is the best terminal I have ever used.
- Oh My ZSH!
- Oh My ZSH! is an excellent tool for managing your ZSH configuration and works beautifully on top of Iterm2.