What we use to build AlternativeTo

To do Frontend development with Next.Js

Visual Studio is the main IDE we use for coding, debugging and everything else that you do in a large app like this.

Javascript framework to run polymorphic apps.

Our API is built in .net core.

We use Typescript to make sure we do not add to many runtime errors.

For our new frontend.

As a cache for data that is accessed often.

As the primary database for the site

A lot of the design elements on the site was done in Photoshop over the years, but lately we're leaning towards Sketch.

A modern way to create user interfaces and more. Most of the current design on the site was made with Sketch, the rest with Photoshop.

To test and debug the API.

Both in production and for development.

Awesome test framework for integration and E2E tests.

For database management.

For database management.

To make sure the page is as fast as possible.

Finally a decent terminal for windows.

Most of our CI/CD is running in Azure Devops.

Like most other software developers nowdays we use GIT as our source control system and we host our code on GitHub. We also use their issue system to associate bugs with commits and so on.

Since we use Github we of course also use Git.

To speed up your requests, detect spam and some great HTTPS support.

As the server side package manager in Visual Studio

Not sure why, but we mainly use Yarn as a package manager in the JS world.

To host most of our servers, databases and so on.

To provide you with an incredible fast and accurate search

To keep an eye on the SERP.

We spend a lot of time trying to understand how the site works and how our users engage with the site, and we do most of that digging in Google Analytics.

For authentication and some user management.

AlternativeTo is a distributed team and since not two single people are based in the same city, this is our digital office.

For internal documentation.

For all our task management and daily operations.

A collaborative inbox and support chat.

A lot of blog posts, plans and other long.form texts have been typed up in this application, either on Mac OS X or on iOS.

To keep the passwords safe and to share them with our team.

The team often checks on apps using VirusTotal, to ensure they're safe for users.

Our primary source of income.

To work with our Redis cache locally