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Best tools for startups (under 20 people)

The lean startup stack. Tools that scale from 2 to 20 without breaking the bank.

Updated 2026-04-12

Early-stage startups need to move fast without spending half their runway on SaaS subscriptions. The right stack at this stage is simple, has generous free tiers, and won't need replacing at 50 people.

We've focused on tools with strong free tiers or per-seat pricing under $10/month. Every dollar matters when you're pre-revenue.

Communication

Slack's free tier works fine under 10 people. Discord is genuinely free and many startups use it.

Slack
Free tier From $7.25/user/mo

Team messaging platform with channels, threads, and integrations for workplace communication.

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Discord
Free Free

Voice, video, and text communication platform originally built for gaming, now used by communities and teams.

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Project management

Linear is the default for dev-heavy startups. Plane if you want open source. ClickUp if you need everything in one tool.

Linear
Free tier From $8/user/mo

Fast, opinionated project management tool built for software teams.

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Plane
Free Free

Open-source project management tool for software teams. Self-hostable alternative to Jira and Linear.

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ClickUp
Free tier From $7/user/mo

All-in-one productivity platform combining project management, docs, goals, and whiteboards.

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Design

Figma is the industry standard. Penpot is the free, open-source alternative.

Figma
Free tier From $12/editor/mo

Browser-based collaborative design tool for UI/UX design, prototyping, and design systems.

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Penpot
Free Free

Open-source, browser-based design and prototyping platform. Self-hostable.

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Docs & wiki

Notion for team docs and wikis. Hard to beat at this stage.

Notion
Free tier From $8/user/mo

All-in-one workspace for notes, docs, wikis, project management, and databases.

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Obsidian
Free Free

Local-first markdown note-taking app with bidirectional linking and a plugin ecosystem.

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Hosting & deploy

All three have generous free tiers. Vercel for Next.js, Cloudflare Pages for static sites.

Vercel
Free Free

Frontend cloud platform for deploying web applications with serverless functions and edge network.

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Netlify
Free Free

Web hosting and automation platform for modern web projects with serverless backend.

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Cloudflare Pages
Free Free

Free static site and full-stack hosting on Cloudflare's global edge network.

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Analytics

PostHog does product analytics + session replay for free. Plausible/Umami for simple, privacy-first web analytics.

PostHog
Free Free

Open-source product analytics suite with session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, and surveys.

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Plausible
From $9/mo

Privacy-friendly, lightweight web analytics. No cookies, GDPR-compliant out of the box.

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Umami
Free Free

Open-source, privacy-focused web analytics you can self-host.

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CRM

Attio is the modern startup CRM. HubSpot's free tier is feature-rich if you don't mind the complexity.

Attio
Free Free

Modern, flexible CRM that adapts to your workflow with powerful data modeling.

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HubSpot CRM
Free Free

Free CRM with marketing, sales, and service tools built in.

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Code

GitHub for most teams. GitLab if you want built-in CI/CD and prefer self-hosting.

GitHub
Free Free

Code hosting, version control, and developer collaboration platform powered by Git.

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GitLab
Free Free

Complete DevOps platform with Git hosting, CI/CD, security, and project management in one tool.

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