Streamline your digital strategy with this comprehensive list of our favorite products and services in 2023, from CMS and testing to data management platforms.
Working in a fast-paced, high demand agency environment definitely has its challenges. One of the seldom acknowledged benefits of working for a digital agency is exposure to a broad range of products & services. As a digital consultancy, we’re always on the lookout for the new trends and standout services that can plug into the rich web-based ecosystem that powers today’s digital brands.
Most of our clients want to run fast and keep their costs low. However, the development of custom software, whether a website or online application, is rarely described in these terms. Custom engineering is expensive. And even standing up a team that can run fast and support complex & changing project requirements over time is extremely difficult.
So while we love writing custom software or orchestrating a bunch of containers to stand up your online infrastructure, it’s often not in the best interest of our stakeholders. Below is a brief compendium of the products and services we regularly recommend help our client achieve first-class experiences while keeping engineering costs to a minimum.
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Disclaimer! These are the products & services we’re loving as of January 2023 – but we reserve the right to keep adding to this list as the year goes on and more cool things get invented. Follow us on socials to stay in the loop 😉
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform offered by Amazon.com that provides a range of services and tools for building, deploying, and managing applications and infrastructure in the cloud.
AWS includes a wide range of services such as computing, storage, and databases, as well as tools for building, deploying, and managing applications. It is designed to be flexible and scalable, and it is used by businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises.
AWS is popular among developers and organizations for its reliability, flexibility, and wide range of features. It is often used to build and host a variety of applications, including web and mobile applications, big data analytics platforms, and enterprise applications.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. It provides a range of cloud services, including computing, analytics, storage, and networking, that businesses can use to build and run a variety of applications and services.
Azure is designed to be flexible and scalable, and it is used by businesses of all sizes to build and deploy a wide range of applications, including web and mobile apps, data analytics platforms, and Internet of Things (IoT) systems. It provides a range of tools and services for developing, deploying, and managing applications, including support for a wide variety of programming languages and frameworks.
Azure is a popular choice among developers and organizations for its reliability, security, and wide range of features. It is often used in conjunction with other Microsoft products and services, such as Windows Server and Active Directory, to build and manage enterprise-grade applications and infrastructure.
Contentful is a content management system (CMS) that provides tools for managing, storing, and delivering digital content. It is designed to be flexible and scalable, and it is often used to build and manage websites, mobile apps, and other digital experiences.
Contentful has a cloud-based content infrastructure that allows businesses to create, edit, and publish content using a web-based interface or API. It also includes a range of tools for managing content workflows, such as version control and collaboration features, and for integrating content with other systems and platforms.
Contentful is popular among developers for its API-driven approach to content management, which allows them to build custom integrations and applications that use the platform’s content management capabilities. It is often used in conjunction with other tools, such as static site generators and headless CMSs, to build modern web and mobile applications.
Cypress is a JavaScript-based end-to-end testing tool for web applications. It allows developers to write tests that verify that an application is functioning as intended from the user’s perspective.
With Cypress, developers can write tests that simulate user actions, such as clicking on buttons or filling out forms, and ensure that the expected results occur. For example, a developer could write a test that clicks on a “Submit” button, and then verifies that a success message appears on the page.
Cypress is designed to be easy to use and integrate into a development workflow. It has a command-line interface (CLI) that allows developers to run tests and view the results, and it also includes a browser-based dashboard that provides a more interactive testing experience. Cypress can be used with a variety of frameworks and libraries, such as React and Angular, and it can be run on a continuous integration (CI) server to enable automatic testing as part of the development process.
GitHub is a web-based platform for version control and collaboration that allows developers to work on projects together. It is primarily used for developing computer code, but it can also be used to store and manage other types of files.
On GitHub, developers can create a repository (or “repo”) for a project, which functions as a directory for the project’s files. They can then invite other developers to collaborate on the project by giving them access to the repository. GitHub provides a variety of tools to help developers manage and track changes to the code, including the ability to review and discuss changes before they are merged into the main branch of the project.
GitHub also has a large community of developers who use the platform to share and discover open-source projects, which are projects that are freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute.
GitHub Actions is a feature of the GitHub platform that allows developers to automate their software development workflows. With GitHub Actions, developers can create custom automation processes called “workflows” that are triggered by events on GitHub, such as push events or pull request events.
Workflows are defined in a configuration file in the repository, and they can include a series of actions that are executed in response to the triggering event. Actions are individual tasks that can be performed as part of a workflow, such as building code, running tests, or deploying applications. GitHub Actions includes a library of pre-built actions, as well as the ability to create custom actions using JavaScript or other programming languages.
GitHub Actions is designed to make it easier for developers to automate their development process and build Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. It is a powerful tool for automating a wide range of tasks, and it is widely used by developers to streamline their development workflows and improve the reliability and speed of their software development process.
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It is designed to help businesses and organizations understand how visitors interact with their websites, with the goal of improving the user experience and the effectiveness of the site.
Google Analytics works by tracking and collecting data about website visitors, such as the pages they visit, the time they spend on the site, and the actions they take. It then provides a range of tools and reports for analyzing this data and understanding how visitors use the site.
Google Analytics is a popular tool for businesses and organizations of all sizes, as it is free to use and provides a wide range of features and integrations. It can be used to track a variety of metrics, including pageviews, traffic sources, conversions, and e-commerce activity. It is often used in conjunction with other marketing and advertising tools, such as Google AdWords, to help businesses understand the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure created by Google for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Google-managed data centers. It provides a range of cloud services, including computing, analytics, storage, and networking, that businesses can use to build and run a variety of applications and services.
GCP is designed to be flexible and scalable, and it is used by businesses of all sizes to build and deploy a wide range of applications, including web and mobile apps, data analytics platforms, and machine learning models. It provides a range of tools and services for developing, deploying, and managing applications, including support for a wide variety of programming languages and frameworks.
GCP is a popular choice among developers and organizations for its reliability, security, and wide range of features. It is often used in conjunction with other Google products and services, such as G Suite and Google Maps, to build and manage cloud-based applications and infrastructure.
GraphQL is a query language for APIs that provides a flexible and efficient way for clients to request data from servers. It was developed by Facebook in 2012 and released publicly in 2015.
GraphQL allows clients to request specifically the data they need, and nothing more, and it gives them the ability to ask for related data in a single request, rather than making multiple roundtrips to the server. This makes it a powerful and efficient alternative to traditional REST APIs, which typically expose a fixed set of endpoints for each resource and require multiple requests to retrieve related data.
GraphQL is used by a growing number of companies and organizations to build APIs for web and mobile applications, and it has a large and active community of users and contributors. It is often used in conjunction with modern web and mobile development frameworks, such as React and Angular, to build scalable and flexible client-server applications.
Hasura is an open-source platform for building and deploying applications that use GraphQL, a query language for APIs. It is designed to make it easy for developers to build and deploy GraphQL-based applications, and it provides tools for managing and deploying GraphQL APIs, as well as real-time data synchronization and event triggers.
Hasura is often used to build modern web and mobile applications that require flexible and efficient access to data from a variety of sources. It is particularly well-suited for building applications that need to support real-time data updates, such as chat applications and collaborative tools.
Hasura is built on top of PostgreSQL, a popular open-source database management system, and it provides a set of tools for connecting to and querying PostgreSQL databases using GraphQL. It is popular among developers for its simplicity and performance, and it has a large and active community of users and contributors.
Hotjar is a web analytics and user experience (UX) research platform that provides tools for understanding how users interact with a website. It is designed to help businesses improve their online presence by providing insights into user behavior and feedback.
Hotjar includes a range of tools for collecting and analyzing data about user behavior on a website, including heatmaps, which show where users are clicking and scrolling on a page, and session recordings, which allow businesses to see how users navigate through the site. It also has tools for collecting user feedback, such as surveys and polls, and for conducting UX research studies.
Hotjar is designed to be easy to use and integrate into a website, with a simple JavaScript snippet that can be added to any web page. It is used by businesses of all sizes to improve the usability and performance of their websites and online applications.
Netlify is a cloud platform for building, deploying, and managing modern web applications and static websites. It is designed to make it easy for developers to build, test, and deploy their applications, with features like continuous deployment, global CDN distribution, and integration with Git.
Netlify offers a range of hosting options for different types of applications, including serverless functions, static sites, and full-stack applications. It also provides a set of developer tools, such as a command-line interface (CLI) and an API, that make it easy to build and deploy applications.
Netlify is popular among developers for its simplicity and ease of use, and it is often used for building and deploying modern web applications, such as those built with React or Next.js. It is also used for hosting static sites, such as documentation sites and personal blogs.
Next.js is a JavaScript framework for building server-rendered and statically generated web applications. It is built on top of React, a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces, and it provides a set of tools and libraries that make it easier to develop and deploy React-based applications.
Next.js is designed to be easy to use and performant, with features like automatic code splitting and optimized performance for server-rendered apps. It also provides built-in support for server-side rendering, which means that the server can pre-render the initial HTML for a page and send it to the client, improving the initial load time for the app.
Next.js is often used to build web applications that need to be server-rendered for SEO or performance reasons, or to build statically generated websites that can be easily deployed to a CDN. It is popular for its simplicity and flexibility, and it is often used in conjunction with other tools and libraries, such as GraphQL, to build modern web applications.
npm (short for Node Package Manager) is a package manager for the JavaScript programming language. It is the default package manager for the JavaScript runtime environment Node.js.
npm is used to install and manage packages of code, called “dependencies,” that are used by an application. These packages can include libraries, frameworks, and other tools that are required for an application to run. npm makes it easy for developers to share and reuse code by publishing packages to a public registry, and it also provides versioning and dependency management to help ensure that applications are using the correct versions of the packages they depend on.
npm is a critical part of the Node.js ecosystem and is widely used by developers to build and deploy modern web applications. It is also used to manage dependencies for front-end web development tools, such as React and Angular.
Percy is a visual testing and review platform, and BrowserStack is a cloud-based web and mobile testing platform. Percy by BrowserStack is a integration between the two platforms that allows developers to use BrowserStack to test their web applications and automatically capture visual differences with Percy.
With Percy by BrowserStack, developers can use BrowserStack to run their tests on a variety of different browsers, operating systems, and devices, and then use Percy to review the visual changes that occurred during the test. Percy captures screenshots of the app at various points during the test and compares them to previous versions, highlighting any visual differences. This can help developers identify and fix visual bugs and regressions in their applications.
Percy by BrowserStack is particularly useful for teams that are practicing continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), as it allows them to automatically capture and review visual changes as part of their build and deployment process.
Prismic is a content management system (CMS) that provides tools for managing, storing, and delivering digital content. It is designed to be flexible and scalable, and it is often used to build and manage websites, mobile apps, and other digital experiences.
Prismic has a cloud-based content infrastructure that allows businesses to create, edit, and publish content using a web-based interface or API. It also includes a range of tools for managing content workflows, such as version control and collaboration features, and for integrating content with other systems and platforms.
Prismic is popular among developers for its API-driven approach to content management, which allows them to build custom integrations and applications that use the platform’s content management capabilities. It is often used in conjunction with other tools, such as static site generators and headless CMSs, to build modern web and mobile applications.
SpeedCurve is a website performance monitoring and optimization platform that provides tools for analyzing and improving the speed and performance of websites. It is designed to help businesses and organizations understand how their websites are performing and identify areas for improvement, with the goal of providing a better user experience and improving business metrics such as conversion rates and revenue.
SpeedCurve includes a range of tools for measuring and analyzing website performance, including synthetic monitoring, which simulates the performance of a website from various locations around the world, and real user monitoring (RUM), which collects data about the performance of a website as it is experienced by actual users. It also provides tools for identifying and fixing performance issues, such as slow-loading pages and inefficient code, and for optimizing the delivery of content to users.
SpeedCurve is often used by businesses and organizations to improve the speed and performance of their websites, especially e-commerce and other sites that rely on fast loading times to drive conversions and revenue. It is also used by developers and performance engineers to understand and optimize the performance of their websites and applications.
Storybook is an open-source tool for developing and testing user interface components in isolation. It is primarily used for building and testing components in JavaScript libraries and frameworks, such as React, Angular, and Vue, but it can also be used with other technologies.
With Storybook, developers can create a library of isolated, reusable components that can be developed and tested independently of the main application. This allows them to focus on building individual components and iterating on their design and functionality without the need to set up a full application environment.
Storybook provides a user interface for viewing and interacting with the components in the library, as well as tools for testing and documenting the components. It can be integrated into a development workflow and used as a reference for designers and other developers working on the project.
Storybook is popular among front-end developers and has a large and active community of users and contributors. It is often used in conjunction with other tools, such as Jest and Enzyme, to build and test modern web applications.
Vercel is a cloud platform for deploying and hosting web applications and static websites. It is designed to make it easy for developers to build, deploy, and scale their applications, with features like automatic scaling, global CDN distribution, and integration with Git.
Vercel offers a range of hosting options for different types of applications, including serverless functions, static sites, and full-stack applications. It also provides a set of developer tools, such as a command-line interface (CLI) and a continuous deployment (CD) service, that make it easy to build and deploy applications.
Vercel is popular among developers for its simplicity and ease of use, and it is often used for building and deploying modern web applications, such as those built with React or Next.js. It is also used for hosting static sites, such as documentation sites and personal blogs.
Yext is a company that provides a platform for businesses to manage their online presence across various websites, directories, and search engines. The platform includes tools for businesses to update their business information, such as their hours of operation, phone number, and address, as well as tools for managing online reviews and ratings. Yext also offers services to help businesses improve their search engine optimization (SEO) and drive more traffic to their websites.
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