Stack
My favorite tools and software.
1.1.1.1
Add a little bit of extra privacy to your internet browsing.
1Password
Everyone should be using a password manager, and 1Password is the best option.
Alfred
A simple but powerful Spotlight replacement for macOS.
Apollo
The best 3rd party Reddit app on the App Store.
Audible
My preferred way to engage with fiction books – get a good narrator, and it’s unbeatable.
Better
A lightweight Safari extension (for macOS and iOS) that blocks 3rd party trackers on the web.
Clay
A beautiful application to keep track of personal relationships over time.
CleanShot X
The no-brainer replacement for macOS screenshot utilities.
Contrast
A must-have color and accessibility tool for interface designers.
Copilot
The most polished and functional budgeting app on the market.
Cypress
Cypress makes it really easy to automate website testing.
Darkroom
Halide gets you the most out of your camera. Darkroom gets you the most out of each photo.
Day One
A solid journaling app that gets the basics right, with a few cool bonus features like "On this day."
Dependabot
Dependabot keeps all of my project dependencies up to date every week, saving me time and frustration.
Descript
It’s not often that you find software that truly feels like magic. Descript is magic.
Fantastical
A no-brainer upgrade to the macOS system Calendar app.
Fathom
My favorite analytics tool for my personal site and side projects. Fathom is fast, easy to use, and privacy-first.
Feather Icons
A gorgeous open source icon set – easily grab SVGs, or integrate it directly into your React project.
Figma
Figma is my design tool of choice. Features like Auto Layout v3 and Variants make it really fast to iterate and explore while designing interfaces.
Ghost
A simple writing surface with API access to my content.
Gifski
Enter as a movie, leave as a gif.
GitHub Mobile
I work at GitHub, so I’m definitely not biased! I use GitHub Mobile every single day to keep up with my work and side projects.
Glyph Finder
Quit Googling for unicode characters!
Gumroad
If you are a creator and want to sell something online, Gumroad will have you up and earning in minutes.
Halide Mark II
The gold standard of camera applications.
Hand Mirror
In the Age of Zoom, always have a mirror handy.
iA Writer
When I’m writing notes, performance reviews, or show notes for Design Details, it happens in iA Writer.
iStat Menus
The best way to know what’s happening inside my computer at all times.
Kap
For quick screen recordings and movie conversions.
Keynote
The true way to make great presentations.
Letterboxd
The best place to find and organize your movie watchlist.
Loom
Who knew that screen recorders + a profile overlay could be so fun?
Magnet
Learn the keyboard shortcuts and master your window organization on macOS.
Mailbrew
This is my answer to Twitter FOMO: I set up a daily digest with the top links and best tweets from all the people I follow. Simple. Easiest $100/yr subscription to justify.
NetNewsWire
My go-to RSS reader for macOS and iOS.
Next.js
The best way to build modern React websites.
Outlook for iOS
The best mail and calendar combination app on the App Store.
PixelSnap 2
I never thought I needed this until I tried it. PixelSnap is a great utility in the designer’s toolbelt.
Pocket Casts
Pocket Casts is the best podcast client on the market. Automated lists and per-podcast playback controls are just what I need.
Postmark
A simple, but powerful, tool for sending transactional emails.
Readng
A beautiful and simple app for tracking my reading list. It has light social features that help you discover new books to read, too.
SF Symbols
An essential tool for designers and developers working in the Apple ecosystem.
Sonos
The best way to set up multi-room, multi-player, multi-service music experiences at home. One you’ve fully committed to the ecosystem, it’s magic.
Spotify
As far as I can tell, the best music disocvery and recommndation service available. I basically live in Spotify’s personal playlists.
Tailwind CSS
A compositional CSS framework that makes styling websites easy. It’s like writing CSS on steroids.
Tempo
This is my new default email client for macOS. I love the batches feature and minimal UI.
Things
Things is my second brain. It’s the gold standard of software design: fast, fun, easy to use, beautiful, with a complete cross-device story.
Tweetbot for macOS
A streamlined, beautiful, multi-account Twitter client for macOS.
Vercel
Everything I make on the internet lives on Vercel. Vercel is the gold standard of developer tools.
VSCode
My code editor of choice.
About these links
I only recommend apps and tools that I use every day and think are excellent. Nobody is paying to be on this list.
However, some of the links above are affiliate links. If you don’t want to click them out of principle, I understand. Any affiliate income earned goes straight back into powering this website and my other side projects: servers, storage, domain names, and other operational costs do add up.
❤️ Brian
Recommendations
My stack is a curated list of tools and software that I use daily. In general, less is more. But I’m always interested in discovering great new apps and tools – let me know what I should check out.