2021 Top 5 Free Tools for Early Stage Tech Startups

Running a startup in 2021 comes with its own set of challenges and misfortunes. Now that majority of people work remotely and are no longer confined to physical office spaces, a new set of challenges involving productivity, communication, efficiency, and decision-making has become more pressing than ever.

As an early-stage founder or tech team manager, your ability to carefully vet and select the right tools early on can save you thousands of dollars now and for the long term.

With the plethora of tools in the market aimed at addressing these problems, a few stand out and do exceptionally well at that. As an early-stage founder or tech team manager, your ability to carefully vet and select the right tools early on can save you thousands of dollars now and for the long term.

In this post, I highlight my top 5 free tools for early-stage tech startups to take advantage of, avoiding unnecessary costs as much as possible while validating that shiny new idea for market fit and scalability.

These tools have been selected and categorized based on four main criteria.

• Features
• Pricing
• Ease of Use
• Scalability

Best in class to solve challenges related to productivity, communication, authentication, data storage, and cloud hosting needs. In no particular order, they are:

1. Asana
2. Slack
3. Auth0
4. MongoDB Atlas
5. Heroku

Asana (Productivity)

Asana is a project, team & progress management tool with an overwhelming list of features and free tools for individuals and teams to take advantage of. One exciting aspect of this tool is that it is scalable to support whatever team size or workflow your business requires.

Key Features:

• Unlimited tasks and projects
• Unlimited file storage
• Up to 15 teammates
• Time tracking
• List and Board views for projects
• Mobile and Web support

and many more in its “free forever” plan.

I have used this tool for several projects over and over again, its ease of use and adoption rate is exceptional when it comes to managing your project effectively. Its free features are second to none.

With Asana, your team can effectively plan out the project scope, timelines, milestones and collaborate on getting things done quickly and easily.

Get it here: Asana.com

Slack ( Communication)

Slack helps you stay connected with your teammates while worlds apart.

With its fantastic set of features and ease of use, slack continues to dominate as the most preferred communication tool for businesses and professionals.

Many small and medium scale businesses wouldn’t have survived 2020 without this amazing tool.

Key Features:

• Access up-to 10,000 of your teams most recent message
• Easy integrations with up to 10 of your favorite app (Google Drive, Office 365, Github, and much more)
• Free audio and video calls with your teammates.
• Easily organize workflows with channels
• Webhooks (easily set up your CI/CD tools to notify your team of events)
• Mobile, Desktop and Web support

and much more.

Get it here: Slack.com

Auth0 ( Authentication & Authorization)

For startups and teams building applications that require some sort of authentication/authorization for their users, auth0 takes away 70–80% of the work involved in setting this up.

If you are trying to validate an idea, you want to move as fast as possible and save as much time as you can. With auth0, you can roll out a fully secure authentication system in a matter of minutes.

Key Features:

• Up to 7,000 active users
• Easy to set up integration with other social authentication providers (Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and much more)
• Export your users' information with a few clicks
• Awesome documentation and test tools
• Unlimited logins
• Multiple applications support
• Easy to use dashboard for user management and support

With auth0, you never have to worry about managing users again. This platform is a real-life saver for teams in a time crunch.

Get it here: Auth0.com

MongoDB Atlas (Data Storage)

MongoDB Atlas prides itself as the most innovative cloud database service on the market, with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.

With an overwhelmingly generous free tier, it definitely sets itself apart from the market.

Key Features:

• Secure and Highly Scalable
• Snapshots and Backups
• Between 512MB to 5GB of free storage
• Easy to set up and use web interface
• A plethora of supporting tools and features (Charts, Atlas Data Lake, Search, Realm, etc)

If you require a top-notch and state-of-the-art NoSQL storage service for your business, then look no further. Atlas has it all figured out for you.

Get it here: MongoDB Atlas

Heroku (Cloud Hosting Services)

Heroku gives you the simplest path to delivering apps quickly. Whether you’re building a simple prototype or a business-critical product, Heroku has an automated workflow for you.

Small and large businesses use Heroku to easily show their innovations to the world. This tool made the list easily as one of my favorites of all time. Its ease of use is phenomenal and second to none.

Key Features:

• 550 to 1,000 free dyno hours per month
• Easily deploy with Git or Docker
• Custom Domains
• One-Click deploys
• Super simple dashboard and analytics interface
• Phenomenal CLI tool
• Wide range of language support: Node.js, Ruby, Java, PHP, Python, Go, Scala, Clojure

and much more.

Get it here: Heroku.com

And there you go. 5 top tools that can set you ahead immediately without making you bankrupt in your early stages of implementation.

Please share in the comments other amazing tools you have come across in your startup journeys worth recommending.

Till next time…