Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.

I get asked a lot about the things I use to build software, stay productive, or buy to fool myself into thinking I'm being productive when I'm really just procrastinating. Here's a big list of all of my favorite stuff.

Hardware

  • 14" MacBook Pro, M1 Pro, 32GB RAM (2021)

    I was using an Intel-based 13" MacBook Pro prior to this and the difference was night and day. I've never heard the fans turn on a single time, even under the incredibly heavy loads it stays really cool and quiet.

  • Intel NUC 11 Pro (NUC11TNHi50L00)

    I use this as my router, internet gateway and homelab server for all of my personal projects. It's a tiny little box that's super quiet and stable. I have it running Proxmox VE and it's been rock solid.

  • HHKB Pro 2 Keyboard + custom hacked BLE module

    Being an infamous keyboard brand, HHKB makes great keyboard for software enthusiasts. I recommend it for the design, build quality (made in Japan) and the typing feedback.

  • Herman Miller Aeron Chair

    If I'm going to slouch in the worst ergonomic position imaginable all day, I might as well do it in an expensive chair. This chair fixes my back pain.

  • iPhone 15 Pro

    Though I reckon the software quality of Apple has been dropping significantly in recent years, I buy their products nonetheless because I really like the industrial design of the hardware.

Development tools

  • My dotfiles

    Well, everything on my computers are provisioned using Nix. A big portion of my daily workflow is based around the CLI.

  • Helix Editor

    Helix is the one command-line editor that actually clicked for me. Compared to vim, Helix has this selection → action model that makes editing a lot more intuitive. It's also ready to use out-of-the box, so this saves the hassle of configuration of the editor or the plugins.

  • Ghostty

    I like Ghostty because of its performance, aesthetics and the author's passion into terminal emulators. I did the switch from iTerm 2 mainly since the latter became somehow bloated after some point.

  • Tailscale

    Great software for managing WireGuard mesh for your internal networks. I use it to connect my personal devices to my servers.

Design

  • Berkeley Mono

    This is the monospace font that I use for my terminal and coding editors. I really love its oldschool aesthetics.

  • Figma

    I've used Figma for a couple of projects and it's become my first choice when it comes to prototyping a new idea. Never would have expected the collaboration features to be the real hook.

Productivity

  • Raycast

    I've used Launchbar and Alfred in the past. Raycast came out to be the best fit for me. It's fast and very feature-rich, supercharging my workflow every single day.

  • Arc

    Being a low-profile browser app, Arc Browser solves the problem of having too many tabs open in your browser. It also has a great command bar that you can do any action with your keyboard.

  • 1Password

    For me, password managers are productivity tools. They have to be accessible on all platforms, preferably with great UX. This is the one that I've been using over 10 years.

  • LLMs

    I use whatever gives the best result. Right now, Google Gemini is the one to go giving its strong reasoning and multimodal abilities. For coding, I use Claude Code on a daily basis.

Infrastructure

  • Porkbun

    Yet another domain registrar but very simple to use. Offers also great price. I like its name.

  • Migadu

    Being a Swiss email service, I find their UI also really simplistic and intuitive. I pay a little price every year to save the hassle of managing one myself.

  • AWS

    Yeah, the cloud that kinda took down the Internet several times. I don't use EC2 but Route 53 to host my DNS records. I also host some things on Cloudfront.

  • Cloudflare

    I use also Cloudflare for a number of things. Parts of my infrastructure are proxied through their edge by using the partial setup. Their serverless service is also excellent.

  • Vercel

    I use Vercel to host Next.js projects, including this website. Great first-class DX. However I don't like the vendor lock-in of their products.

  • rsync.net

    A simple but very reliable cloud storage for offsite backup. I use it in tandem with restic/borg to automatic backups everywhere.

  • Backblaze B2

    There is zero data transfer fee between B2 and Cloudflare, therefore I put assets on B2 and host them through Cloudflare edges. Very fast, reliable and also affordable.